Southern California Long-range Surf Forecast – 10/29/2009

Forecast Overview

Mostly leftovers on tap for the next few days…the weather will be nice, but there won’t be much to ride. Look for small, tide swamped surf over the weekend and slight increase in NW swell (290-300) as we move into early next week. Long-range charts are showing some better activity…but the storms are still several days from forming.

Short Range (next 4 days)

Friday
Wave heights will be on the way down on Friday…the last of our NW windswell mix (290-300) will be dropping off leaving us with some very minor (and inconsistent) SW swell (200-220). Wave heights are going to hold around knee high for the average NW-combo exposed breaks. There may be a few waist high sets sneaking into the “average” spots…but the morning tide is going to shut it almost completely down. The top NW facing spots…mostly through Southern San Diego and Southern Ventura…will be more consistently in the knee-waist high range with some rare chest waves on the biggest sets. Winds/Weather: Of course now that the surf has dropped our weather improves. Friday will be a pretty nice day…sunny skies and light/moderate offshore winds for most spots in the morning. Mostly light WNW-W winds in the 8-10 knot range push onshore through the afternoon.



Saturday
The small surf will continue as we slog through a weak mix of leftover NW windswell and some inconsistent background pulses of SW energy (190-220)…basically just enough juice to keep it from going completely flat (though it will feel completely flat thanks to a 5’ high tide that hits right around 7-8am). Most spots will continue to see knee high surf with some very inconsistent waist high sets. Standout combo spots will be more consistently around knee-waist high…with a couple of rare waist-high+ sets on the lower tides. Winds/Weather: Clean again on Saturday…mostly light and variable to light offshore in the morning and only weak onshore flow building out of the W (5-8 knots) for the afternoon.



Sunday
Ugh…the near flatness continues…do I really have to write this again? Oh ok….it won’t be totally flat but the lovely 6’ high tide in the morning is going to swampthing us for sure…(Slimy! Mud hole! My home this is!). Look for more knee high wavelets from the leftover NW/SW energy (and a slight little increase in inconsistent SW swell). The top spots hold around knee-waist high+ but have issues with the tides…just like everywhere else. Winds/Weather: Clear skies, light winds, clean conditions. Winds will be light/variable through the morning and then turn NW around 10-12 knots during the afternoon.



Monday
We finally start to see an increase in size…unfortunately it is from a NW swell with some pretty steep swell angles (295-300) that managed to push all the way across the North Pacific without much support. Look for the average spots to continue to hold around knee-waist high. Standout NW facing spots will see some better knee-chest high surf, while a few of the spots that really like long-period NW swells see some more consistent waist-chest high+ sets. Winds/Weather: More of the same…mostly light and variable winds through the morning and then building NW winds 10-14 knots by the afternoon.

Long-Range

North Pacific
Thanks to a pretty solid ridge of high-pressure holding sway over most of the NE Pacific we haven’t see much storm activity moving through the good parts of our swell window, which means…ah you guessed it…that we don’t have much swell on tap from this region right now.



Basically the only swell producing storm that managed to pull together was a very intense (but very far away) extra-tropical typhoon over by the Kamchatka Peninsula (go ahead and google it…I can wait). This storm did put together some 50-60+ knot winds as it tore through the waters NE of Japan but it was right on the edge of our swell window and moved north at a semi-oblique angle before it started coming apart just South of the Bering Sea. It did manage to get off a shot of NW swell heading our way but most of the energy is aimed at spots North of Point Conception and the combination of swell decay and shadowing once it finally gets to SoCal isn’t going to help either.



Further Out we don’t have anything set in stone…but I am starting to see some storm action waaay out on the charts. If it pulls together, we would be looking at new WNW-NW swell heading our way for the 6-8th of November.

South Pacific
Still not much happening in this region so the forecast hasn’t changed from earlier this week. Basically high-pressure is blocking the Southern Hemi sweet spot and it isn’t forecast to go anywhere anytime soon, which means that any swell that we get will be sort of around the edges of that blocking-high. There are a couple of storms drifting sort of aimlessly around New Zealand, and over by South America, but neither look particularly good. At this point I am not seeing anything that I would call a “significant” swell…just a couple of weaker background pulses that will push in over the next week or so.



The next, slightly better, S-SSW pulse (190-200) arrives around the 30th….likely in the waist high surf for most spots. Even further out there is a little storm over by New Zealand that will send us an inconsistent waist-chest high SW swell (210-220) for around the 8-9th of November.

Northeast Pacific Tropics
We have a little tropical disturbance down off the coast of Mainland Mexico but it doesn’t look very organized at this point…any development will take a few days…if it happens at all.



Next Long-range forecast will be posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Adam Wright
Surf Forecaster
http://www.socalsurf.com/