Wednesday’s Surf – Sloppy seconds with a couple of clean nuggets

Wednesday will be a surf day for some areas and sort of pig nasty for a lot of others.

We are going to have plenty of swell on Wednesday. There will be a mix of steady S swell from the Southern Hemi, a hefty dose of WNW windswell, and some really ugly short-period S windswell (which will be mostly wind bump).

Almost all areas are going to see shoulder-head high surf tomorrow. The standout S facing spots, NW windswell breaks, and combo spots will have overhead+ sets mixing in.

The real problem is going to be the wind. There is a strong eddy that is already building this evening and will max out tomorrow. It basically means a lot of NW winds through Santa Barbara and to a lesser degree through Ventura. It also means that San Diego and Orange County can expect S-SW winds around 10-15 knots through the morning, which will be a total mess.

It looks like the only area that gets much of a break is North LA County and the South Bay. Thanks to the position of the eddy it looks like LA dodges a bullet. North LA will have light N winds while the South Bay sees light S winds both of which are decent directions for each area.

I would say that LA would be the best bet for tomorrow…at least for the morning. Onshore winds will push in for all areas by the afternoon and the outer waters are going to get thrashed…probably 20-30+ knots. The North LA spots will probably have the best shape because they are working off the cleaner S swell. The South Bay will be a stacked up mix of large windswell.

There will be a few fallback spots in other areas…in San Diego and OC look for those spots that are protected from the S winds (like Dana Point breaks in the OC and La Jolla spots in SD). Ventura and Santa Barbara areas it will be best if you head to spots that are sheltered from the N flow…the insides of a lot of the points may be alright but the windswell shape is going to leave a lot to be desired.