Monday’s Surf – Large W swell

Well the W swell (270-300+) hit right on time on Sunday and it is filling in as I write this. Expect the biggest surf to actually arrive overnight but there will be plenty of energy still pushing through as we head into Monday morning.

Check out the CDIP model right now…




At first glance you go oh that doesn’t look that bad…but then you realize that CDIP adjusts the color scale when you get a big swell…so any spot with the mellow green color means 12-15’ faces. I guess that is to keep us calm or something (yeah good call guys).

Anyway onto the Surf…I will actually repost some of the update I had yesterday, but since it still applies what the hell.

Surf for this swell
As the swell peaks wave heights will be consistently in the 8-10’+ range at W facing breaks.

Standout deepwater breaks in San Diego, Ventura, the South Bay, North OC, and southern Santa Barbara will have surf consistently in the 10-15’ range (double- to triple-overhead faces) and there will be some bigger sets mixing in at times.

Big wave spots, like Todos Santos and others, will be even bigger…possibly even doubling those sizes at times.

Conditions
Monday the storm front is supposed to clear through and winds will shift back to the NW as the storm passes on. Expect NW winds 10-15 knots through most of the day.

Best Chance for Surf on this Swell
There will be plenty of swell showing all throughout SoCal from this storm so finding waves won’t really be that tough.

Finding Quality Surf is going to be a bit trickier.

Your best bet is to head to a protected spot. The more sheltered a spot is from the full force of this swell, and the NW winds, the better shape it will probably be. S-facing breaks may actually be really good spots to check on Monday morning.

Here are a couple of reasons:

1. There is enough W-angle (and raw size) in this swell that it will wrap some decent size waves into S facing breaks.

2. S-facing spots generally have some protection from NW winds.

There are plenty of breaks that have this sort of set-up. Personally I would check the northern areas of Santa Barbara, North LA County, Central/South OC…with the goal of looking at spots that are generally smaller and less consistent than the “top” breaks…spots that are usually just longboard waves would be good to check out.

Be safe and have fun!…try and send me some surf pictures of this swell, even if it is just blown out or whatever…(I will post them on the blog…just email me at caine12 @ gmail)