Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : MISCELLANY/ NEWSMAKERS AND MILESTONES

They’re called syzygy and perigee. If you live in Sunset Beach, they’ll flood your basement as they send schools of fish skimming across Pacific Coast Highway.

That’s what happened Monday and Tuesday, when a tide cresting at 7.2 feet spilled over the roadway and brought residents out in canoes and rowboats to survey the scene. One lane of the highway was closed for three hours Tuesday between Warner Avenue and Anderson Street and again briefly on Wednesday. Although damage was minimal, some homeowners reported flooded basements and garages.

Sunset Beach was the only county area flooded by the tide last week, but it could get a whole lot worse around New Year’s Day. That’s when scientists predict syzygy and perigee will be their most destructive.

Syzygy, according to the National Ocean Survey, is a near-alignment of the sun, moon and Earth, and perigee is the point at which the moon is closest to Earth. On New Year’s Day, these two will occur very close together and will produce the highest California tide of the last decade.

If combined with storms or high waves, the effect could be serious. The last time there was such a combination, in 1983, the Seal Beach Pier was ripped apart and most of the beach at San Clemente was washed away. The flooding was called the worst in 20 years and damage was estimated at about $3 million.

On Dec. 31, perigee and syzygy will miss each other by about four hours and the average tide along California’s coast will be about 7.5 feet. The effect will be severe again about a month later, when tides on Jan. 29 will be about 7.1 feet. If there’s an offshore storm, oceanographers warn, the flooding could be worse than three years ago.