King Tides Wash Out Sea Turtle Nests on Jupiter and Juno Beach — Right at the End of a Record-Breaking Season
It has been the best sea turtle nesting season on record for the beaches around Jupiter and Juno Beach. And now the ocean is threatening to take some of it back.
Recent king tide flooding has washed out several sea turtle nests and exposed eggs on local beaches. Visitors to Jupiter Beach Park found multiple eggs on the surface of the sand on Saturday, September 26 — some with small dents or cracks in their shells, along with shell fragments nearby.
The Loggerhead Marinelife Center, which monitors an 8.5-mile stretch of beach in northern Palm Beach County, was unable to say exactly how many nests or eggs were lost. The center is continuing to assess conditions along the monitored stretch.
"An exposed nest does not necessarily mean the eggs are no longer viable," said Katie Fowler, a research scientist at Loggerhead, in a prepared statement. "However, significant changes to the nest environment or the orientation of the eggs can make them unviable."
The damage comes at a complicated moment. This year's nesting season — which runs from March through October — has been exceptional by almost every measure. Loggerhead counted more than 18,000 sea turtle nests so far, including a record 310 leatherback nests, the second-highest number of loggerhead nests ever recorded at 13,870, and 3,882 green sea turtle nests that put this in the top 10 years for that species. Researchers also documented one nest from a rare species.
Green sea turtles, which nest later in the season, tend to build higher on the beach near the dunes — behavior researchers believe is an adaptation to the seasonal conditions that come with October, including stronger tides and stormier weather. That instinct is proving useful right now.
King tides are a predictable feature of fall in Palm Beach County. They occur when full and new moons create a stronger gravitational pull that pushes high tides higher than normal. This year the effect was intensified by ocean swells left over from the early-season nor'easter that moved through the region in late September, which eroded beaches and caused flooding in Jupiter Inlet Colony.
The timing matters for anyone who lives or spends time near local beaches: the peak of this year's king tide season has not yet arrived. According to the National Weather Service in Miami, the highest tides of 2026 are expected between October 23 and October 31 with the full moon. Additional king tide windows include October 7–15, November 5–10, and November 22–26. Minor coastal flooding is already possible midweek through the weekend as a frontal boundary stalls near South Florida.
Nesting season ends in October. Whether the remaining nests survive this final stretch depends on what the tides bring over the next few weeks.