Sunday, May 31, 2009

Monday’s Surf – a slow pickup but still funky

Monday will see a slow increase in wave heights but it still won’t be big enough or consistent enough to really be a surf day.

We are going to have a mix of small S-SSW swell (180-190), some inconsistent SW swell (210-220), and some local NW windswell.



Most spots will be around knee-high+ off the mix of S swell and windswell. The top S facing breaks will see more consistent waist high+ sets…and maybe a rare chest high+ plus wave…on the lower tides. Really though it is going to feel pretty small, mostly gutless, and inconsistent…all of which is going to make for sucky surf.

Winds are going to be sort of blah…there will be some slight eddy circulation early, which means mild onshore flow out of the SW. It will be cleaner through areas that have high cliffs, lots of kelp, or some sort of structure to block the wind. Expect winds to shift to more W-SW flow by midday and then turn more WNW 10-14 knots by the afternoon.



Personally I don’t think that Monday’s surf is looking all that fun…the mix of conditions and swell aren’t really going to click…and there just isn’t enough swell to power through the texture and the higher morning tide. If you have the day off, or just have to surf…I would recommend bringing the small wave gear…longboards will probably be the most fun. Look for the biggest surf through the combo spots of San Diego, but even at those breaks it won’t be worth driving very far.

Here are the tides…

04:58AM LDT 3.6 H
11:10AM LDT 0.8 L
05:50PM LDT 5.1 H

6 comments:

cheerupcheerio said...

ahhhh shoot me in the face!!!! when will this end!!???

Anonymous said...

Adam - is this crap weather a La Nina by product? The last few years we have had 2 week+ stretches of "Eddie" weather like the current spell.

Anonymous said...

it god punishing us all for being lazy ass sinners and trying to predict the waves on our devil machines!! It seemed like it was always good when you were a kid and just went for it. Oh well.. there is always dodging swine flu and gagsters and food poisioning in Mex..

Anonymous said...

Just got back from a week at the islands... even over there it was head-high+ (on the right tide/wind/location/etc)... soooo sad now...

Unknown said...

I don’t think it is a vengeful deity punishing us...at least I would hope not. (It seems like he could have other, more vengeful, things to be doing to other people).

As for the eddy...that thing has always been around...and while the severity has varied it generally behaves like it is right now. 2-3 days of strong eddy circulation followed by a couple of down days and then back at it again.

I do feel that on La Nina years that the eddy seems to start up a bit earlier in the spring (almost as early as late winter)...but then things back down a bit more by July than they would in neutral or El Nino years.

This is a pretty interesting way to look at this cycle...I haven’t been able to pull all of the data that I would need to look at it...I’ll continue to hunt around and see if I can get some better observations.

Anonymous said...

thanks Adam - from my own personal (no science here) observations I am convinced that the Eddie patterns are longer and stronger over the past few years than in my memory from the ten years prior.