Swell Update - W-WNW swell for later this weekend

Hey gang...thought I would send out an update on the new storms forecast to form over the next couple of days.

I am still not really fired up on their swell potential but they are looking more and more like they will send us a few waves.

What I am seeing is a couple of different low-pressures moving into the lower edge of the Gulf of Alaska and pushing close to the California Coast (close enough to give some rain and wind to Northern/Central California and possibly even to us in SoCal).

The first storm has already started to move into position but won't be much of a swell producer. Check out the quikscat image from this system.





You can see that the majority of the winds (which aren't very strong) are moving North and South with only a few small fetches that actually set up towards us.

Really the most important storm is the second one which is forecast to be more intense and have a much more dominate west-to-east push, both of which mean bigger waves.

Check out the second storm on this sea-level pressure chart...

What does this mean? Well at this point I am expecting some increasing W-WNW swell (270-300 degrees with most of the energy around 285-300) arriving in Santa Barbara/Ventura late on Sunday Nov 2nd and the rest of SoCal overnight into Monday Nov 3rd.

At this point it looks good for surf in the chest-head high range for most WNW exposed spots and the possibility for some head high surf at the standouts in San Diego (and maybe in Ventura/South Bay as well.) Periods look pretty short...right in the 10-12 second range which will sort of make this one feel like a punchy windswell.

There is still quite a bit of storm development to go before this swell is completely "in the water" so keep checking back I will have more updates as it pulls together.