Thursday, October 9, 2008

Friday's Surf - not really doing it for me

After the last few days of surf I don't think Friday is going to be much of a surf day. In fact it is going to be on the poor side shapewise for a few areas...especially compared to what we had at the beginning of the week.

We are going to have a mix of backing down SSW swell, fading WNW energy, and increasing local NW windswell.

Most spots are going to be in the waist high range while the more exposed breaks will be running chest high...with a few inconsistent chest-shoulder high sets mixing in.

There should also be some tropical SE swell starting to show some new waves later in the afternoon, but really I am looking for most of that energy to arrive after sunset.

Conditions are what screw us up...looks like onshore winds (similar to Thursday but increasing in strength)...will move in through the morning. There might be a semi-surfable area around N. LA in the morning but most other spots will have onshore winds around 5-10 knots. Afternoon winds build out of W-NW around 10-15+ knots for most areas and stronger gusts at the more exposed breaks.

Really I would plan on taking it easy on Friday...maybe drying out a little bit (I know my ears could take a couple days off, freaking surfer's ear). I wouldn't get up and burn gas or time early tomorrow...I don't think you are going to beat the wind. Personally I am going to do a cam check in the morning (later in the morning...my pillow sounds really nice right now)...just to make sure that I am not missing anything...then start watching the buoys for that tropical swell in the afternoon. Not planning on much surfing tomorrow.

Here are Friday's Tides if you need them

01:06AM 0.5' Low
07:32AM 4.4' High
01:12PM 2.0' Low
06:51PM 4.8' High

3 comments:

Murph said...

which buoy do you check for the tropical swell?

Unknown said...

the Dana Point buoy is really good at picking up the S-SE swells.

Oceanside gets it as well but for some reason it averages the swell directions closer to S (180) than the actual (160-165), which is a bit weird.

Look for most of the energy to be below the 15-second range...mostly in the 10-12+13 second range. It may get lost in the stronger windswell coming down the coast but you can still sort of find it if you know what period bands to stick with.

Murph said...

gracious!