Surf on Friday – Looking messy with some possible pockets

So we have swell in the water...and the winds aren’t horrible everywhere right now (as I write this a whole lot of San Diego is surfable, the South Bay is clean, and whole areas protected from the S-SE winds in Ventura are mostly offshore)...it isn’t great surf but it is bigger than earlier this week, so we finally have something to ride.

That W-WNW swell will keep building tonight and peak sometime after midnight.

It looks good for easy chest-shoulder high surf at most W facing breaks. A few of the standout W-NW facing spots, the usual good winter breaks, will have some head high and overhead sets mixing it. I don’t think it is going to come in much bigger than that since the swell periods are already starting to shorten up to around 13-14 seconds. Check out the CDIPer to see how it is hitting this afternoon.



Winds and weather will be the issue again tomorrow. Forecasts are calling for consistent S-SW winds around 10-15 knots for most areas and stronger gusts through the morning. The winds aren’t that strong but they will have a lot of time on the water tonight so I am expecting some decent chop by tomorrow morning and holding through most of the day.

Now if you don’t mind the questionable water quality and you are relatively close to the beach I think you should probably plan on keeping a “weather eye” on conditions. With the storm moving directly over us there is going to be a fair amount of shifting around windwise at times...if things line up for local area, or you have some great protection from the S winds, I think there are going to be some surfable windows tomorrow. It won’t be great surf...but it will be fairly consistent, have some decent size, and be a lot better than the total flatness we just powered through. Personally I am going to keep my gear in the truck just in case things pull together around my neck of the woods.

Here are the tides...

05:52AM LST 6.0 H
01:29PM LST -1.2 L
07:56PM LST 3.6 H