Southern California Long-range Surf Forecast – 9/10/2009

Forecast Overview

Wave heights are coming up slightly over the next few days as more S-SW energy from Linda (now Hurricane Linda) fills in and mixes with local windswell and leftover SW Southern Hemi swell. Look for a decent WNW-NW swell arriving on Sunday and holding into early next week.

Short Range (next 3 days)



Friday
We will have a mix of tropical S-SW swell, local NW windswell, and some background SW swell. Most spots will hold around waist high with some inconsistent chest high sets mixing in at the better exposed breaks. The top S-SW facing spots, mostly through Orange County and San Diego, will have waist-chest high+ surf fairly consistently but with a few bigger sets mixing in at times. Winds/Weather: Light and variable for the morning. Winds will be mostly below 5 knots but there will be some slight bump at the more exposed areas. W winds 10-15 knots move in through the afternoon.

Saturday
The tropical S-SW swell (200-215) will strengthen a touch and mix with local windswell as well as some more background SW swell. Wave heights will come up a not with the average spots seeing some more consistent waist-chest high surf. Standout S-SW facing spots, the good combo breaks and spots that like shorter-period swells, will be in the chest-shoulder high range with a chance for a rare bigger set on the low tides. Winds/Weather: Light and variable for the morning. Winds will be mostly below 5 knots but there will be some slight bump at the more exposed areas. W winds 10-15 knots move in through the afternoon.

Sunday
The tropical S-SW swell (200-220) will start to back off slightly but still mix with some NW/SW energy. A new WNW-NW swell (290-300) moves in throughout the day and will start adding size to many of the winter spots. Most breaks will continue to hold around waist-chest high but now with some plus sets getting into the mix. The standout breaks, particularly NW/SW combo spots, will be in the shoulder high range with some head high sets combo-ing up at times. This looks like a decent surf day…combo swell with some tropical activity driving part of the combo as well as a longer-period WNW-NW swell…I think I am going to have to cancel all of my chores for the morning. Winds/Weather: Light and variable for the morning. Winds will be mostly below 5 knots but there will be some slight bump at the more exposed areas. W winds 10-15 knots move in through the afternoon.

Long-Range



North Pacific
The storm that we were watching in the last forecast has formed over the last couple of days and is now in the process of setting up some WNW-NW swell (290-300) for later this weekend and into early next week. We will see that new energy arriving at spots in Ventura (and much more shadowed) in Santa Barbara later Saturday night. This swell will fill in more overnight and will push down throughout the rest of Socal. Look for the swell to peak with waist-chest high surf at the better NW facing spots and some chest-shoulder high+ sets coming through at the top spots. Look for this energy to hold into Monday and then slowly start to wind down as we move into the week. Check out the winds on that storm…



Further out it looks like the NPAC is going to quiet down stormwise…so we are going to see marginal leftover energy, and local windswell through most of next week.

South Pacific
The SPAC is just sort of cruising along right now…not kicking out any significant swell, but not going completely dormant either. We are going to see a mix of smaller, less consistent, SW swells over the next week or so…and then a slightly better SSW swell (190-210) moving in around the 18-19th.

We had a couple of storms, one underneath New Zealand and another over by Chile that will both likely send us some swell. This next round of swell, both SE (170-180) and SW (205-220) will begin arriving on September 12th but peaking into the 13-14th with chest high+ waves at the best exposed spots. Those waves will hang around for a few days and it looks like more similar sized SW energy will help to reinforce the first pulse around the 15-16th.

Even further out it looks like a better set of fetch is forecast to form in about 2-3 days that could set up a better angled S-SSW swell (180-200) for around the 18-19th of September. Again nothing huge, but it will be a more consistent chest-shoulder high sets for the better summer spots. Here is the storm setting up that swell.



Northeast Pacific Tropics
TS Linda strengthened Wednesday night and is now Hurricane Linda. If you read the tropical update that I issued earlier you already know that Linda is now a much better looking storm from a wave-making perspective.



She is still sitting almost completely still while she increased in intensity, both of which are good for swell production and, because the storm is a bit stronger, the swell-periods it is kicking out are a bit longer (which shortened travel time for the swell)…so we actually have tropical S-SW swell (190-210) showing here on Thursday, which is nice since it is sending us most of the rideable waves that we are seeing today. This tropical energy will continue to hold through Friday, strengthen slightly on Saturday, and then start to slowly fade out on Sunday. Overall it won’t be a huge swell, but we can expect consistent waist-chest high waves at the average spots with some chest-shoulder high waves at the top S-SW facing spots.


Next Long-range forecast will be posted on Thursday, September 14, 2009

Adam Wright
Surf Forecaster
www.Socalsurf.com