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It’s going to be a ‘sharky summer,’ experts predict, as warmer-than-normal water lingers

April 9, 2026

In Newport Beach, swimming in the ocean was shut down for hours recently after a surfer saw a shark swimming beneath her, circling just under her feet.

In Hermosa Beach, an angler hooked a juvenile great white and went viral on video trying to help the creature back into the ocean.

Cue the “Jaws” soundtrack and prepare yourself — experts say it’s going to be a “sharky summer.”

Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach, said his team has been watching the waters closely for more shark activity, knowing warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures and a looming El Niño could mean a repeat of conditions a decade ago that brought shark populations close to shore.

Several tagged sharks have been detected off Huntington Beach and Newport Beach since February, which is far earlier than normal.

“There is a strong indication we will have a repeat,” Lowe said.

From 2014 through 2016, pockets of sharks were recorded across Southern California — off the South Bay, Long Beach, Huntington Beach, San Clemente and San Diego — with the young sharks sticking around in the warm water created by a marine heat wave, rather than heading south as they typically would each spring.

“The water has been progressively warmer, unusually warm,” Lowe said. “We think that may have brought females back earlier giving birth. All those are signs it will be a sharky summer.”

Back in 2015, colleagues in Mexico were studying nurseries and saw very few sharks that year when waters got too warm, indicating they instead opted for warm, yet milder, waters off Southern California, Lowe said.

“They are sort of like the three bears, they don’t like it too warm, or too cold,” he said. “They want it to be just right. And right now, off Southern California, it is just right.”

The juveniles — around 5 and 6 feet long — like the sandy shallow waters that keep them safe from predators, and the plentiful food of stingrays and small sharks that live near shore, Lowe noted. “That makes it a good place to hang out.”

Scientists and students at the Shark Lab in Long Beach study great white shark behavior off the Southern California coast. (Photo courtesy of CSULB Shark Lab)

Tagged sharks have also been moving around a lot lately in the Santa Monica Bay and up off Santa Barbara, Lowe said, likely searching for a favorite hangout for next summer. It’s looking like Long Beach and Huntington Beach could be hot spots — they were favorable habitats the sharks liked to spend weeks and months in the last time there was a marine heatwave.

“Once they found a good hot spot, even if they migrate in winter to Baja, there’s a high probability they will come back to the same spot,” Lowe said. “They keep coming back to their same stomping grounds, their old playgrounds, because they know the habitat. But they also move and seek out other spots as well.”

The video making its rounds recently of an angler catching a shark off Hermosa Beach worries Lowe, but not because of the shark’s presence, he said.

The heavy-duty fishing line often used by anglers to catch large fish is like a cheese grater, he said, and if a shark pulls on it to get away, a surfer could be decapitated. He also worries that if a shark is agitated after being freed, it could act erratically and bite an unsuspecting swimmer, which happened in Manhattan Beach in 2014.

“We recommend, if you want to fish that way, do it at night when surfers and swimmers aren’t out there,” Lowe said. “We have to find ways to share the environment; the easiest way is to do it at night.”

In Newport Beach, on March 26, surfer Vivian Ngo was sharing the environment without knowing it at first.

Sitting on her board off 35th Street, she noticed something swimming below.

“There were a lot of fish out, the visibility was crazy, you could see everything,” she recounted. “I looked down at my right ankle and 3 inches from my foot was a black fin.”

For 20 seconds, she stared at it, she said, trying to make out the figure, seeing its fin and gills, then seeing the tail move side to side. Then it occurred to her it was a shark swimming beneath her.

“I flipped my board around and started to paddle to shore,” she said. “That’s when I yelled, ‘shark!’ “

“I did the worst thing possible; I was splashing,” she said. “I fell and rolled into the sand. I took my leash off, crawled to shore, screaming and terrified.”

She told the lifeguard about the sighting, then tried to scream at some girls out in the water.

“It wasn’t like ‘Jaws,’ like making a full circle around me,” she said. “It was under my board, making circles, looking at me.”

That behavior was enough to prompt lifeguards to shut down the beach in the area, using an algorithm the Shark Lab came up with based on size, how the shark is acting and whether it is showing aggressive behavior.

Much has changed in the past decade as researchers have learned more about the shark species frequently spotted off the coast, Lowe said.

The Shark Lab started tagging sharks and using acoustic receivers on buoys to track their behavior and to alert lifeguards when they are near beach populations. The researchers also use drones to search for sharks and document their movements. With DNA samples, they can see if food sources are plentiful.

“The biggest value to the public has not just been the researchq but how we share that research with the public and the lifeguards responsible for keeping people safe at the beach,” Lowe said. “Our education and outreach has been instrumental in changing people’s ideas about sharks.”

Drones show sharks are frequently around, right under people, Lowe said. “They didn’t know the sharks are there; we do.

“And people aren’t getting bitten,” he emphasized.

“Because they are around people since they are young, they can now identify people and water users,” Lowe said. “They associate sounds with odors and images. At beaches, humans are just objects on the surface. Sharks are spending time below. We don’t chase them, so we don’t pose a threat.”

Humans don’t look or smell like a food source, so they are largely ignored.

“This is the only way we can explain why people aren’t being bitten,” he said. “It seems both juvenile white sharks and people have come to a mutual agreement about using the ocean — we aren’t interfering with them and we don’t consider them food.”

Still, the question remains for the researchers: Why are there occasional mistakes and someone is bitten?

Much of the Shark Lab’s research had been fueled by a 2028 state grant for $3.75 million, Lowe said, but that money has run out. A private donation from the Paul M. Angell Foundation gave an additional $800,000 that will get Shark Lab through December, he said.

“Then we are back out of money again,” Lowe said. “We were hoping to get state funding, but the budget isn’t looking great.”

And with millions of people flooding to the coast while visiting for the World Cup and the LA28 Olympics, adding to the already busy beaches, there’s concern about how to keep people safe, he said, especially with increased shark numbers off the coast expected.

“The key to our success has been the technology we use — now we know the temperatures they like, what they eat and we can even measure how much food is out there based on water samples,” he said. “All that technology has greatly advanced our understanding.”

It’s going to be a ‘sharky summer,’ experts predict, as warmer-than-normal water lingers Orange County Register

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It’s going to be a ‘sharky summer,’ experts predict, as warmer-than-normal water lingers

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