Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Thursday's Surf - Coming up a touch

Thursday looks like it will try and be a surf day...but I am not totally sold that it will be able to pull it off.

We are going to see a bit more swell from both the Southern Hemi and a touch of WNW background energy but neither of them are looking very healthy...just better than they did on Wednesday.

Our SW'er (190-205) will be filling in as we move throughout the day...but these are just some lead elements of the bigger SSW swell that hits more Friday/Saturday. The WNW energy is mostly coming in from over the 300-degree cutoff so Point Conception and the Nearshore islands will shadow almost all of that energy.

The average S facing breaks and the average combo spots will be around waist-chest high on sets on Thursday. Top SW facing breaks, mostly South Orange County and North San Diego, will have some chest-shoulder high sets through the morning and then will get a bit consistent in the shoulder high+ range by the afternoon.

Winds are forecast to be on the light side through the morning but we are expecting another heavy fog bank holding over SoCal so we may have some light fog texture as that bank moves around and tries to burn off. Look for W winds around 10-15 knot range by the afternoon.

Like I said I am not totally sold on Thursday being a decent surf day...since we will have more size and a bit more consistency I think it will be more fun than Wednesday...but that really isn't saying that much. I would still plan on using your smaller wave gear for most spots...but maybe move up to your fishier shapes if you are going to be surfing some of the more exposed areas.

Oh here is probably one of the most confusing forecast models you can look at...but it is showing that new SSW swell arriving later this week. (I am not sure who at CDIP made the call to turn the SoCal map on its side but I can tell they must get really lost a lot using roadmaps). Anyway if you can wrap your head around the image it is sort of cool to look at. You can find all the live data at this link...

CDIP Recent Observations

Here is the image...




Tides for Thursday

01:26AM -0.3' Low
07:50AM 4.6' High
01:21PM 1.8' Low
07:09PM 5.7' High

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Lots of dark blue on that map for tomorrow. But what the hell, I've got time in the morning. I'll post my sesh later morning. Dawn patrol just in time for the high tide mark., great.

Anonymous said...

Adam, the 72 hour models are in on that macker sohemi storm that I've been watching projections for during the past week.

Do you suppose we can send some big wave karma down there for a big high pressure to set up just to the east of that bad boy and send it just a bit more north. ;)

Out of curiosity, would you suspect there is any hope of some of those monster seas coming our way?

Unknown said...

small surf today, clear water, and lack of crowds in nice.

Unknown said...

I surfed the river for a bit around 10-11am...there were some shoulder almost head high sets. A little inconsistent, walled up thanks to the draining tide, and craptacular thanks to a bit of onshore bump that picked up right as I put on my wetsuit.

Still it wasn't crowded, there were a few waves for the new quad...and any time surfing is better than sitting at a desk.

Pez - That storm down under NZ is looking pretty zonal right now...the core winds and seas are very west-to-east. We will still see some playful swell from it but not like we would if the thing was going to move a little more against the latitudes.