Surf for Tuesday – Building WNW swell and an incoming storm

Tuesday is not looking like much of a surf day…but there might be a couple of pockets here and there.

We are going to have a mix of new WNW energy (290-300 but with a lot of the energy around 295-300), a bit of background SW energy (200-220), and some building S windswell. Stormy conditions start moving in through the day and it looks like the rain could be heavy by the afternoon.



Surfwise the average spots, the ones that can pull in just some of the WNW and SW energy, will be in the knee-waist high range…maybe a few chest high sets coming through if the S windswell chop picks up. Top NW facing spots, mostly through San Diego and Southern Ventura, will see some chest-shoulder high sets off the new NW energy…but again will likely have choppy/sloppy shape as the S winds build in.

Weather/winds are not looking good tomorrow. LA through San Diego it looks like S-SW winds around 10 knots for the morning, which means that there are a few protected areas, like the South Bay, Central OC, or parts of Central SD, that get some blockage from the winds. I don’t expect those areas to be great…but if the winds stay more Southerly or even SW’erly they will be a lot cleaner than the other more exposed spots.

Santa Barbara and Ventura are going to see slightly different winds…forecasts are calling for the leading edge of the front to move over the area, and for strong SE winds to blow through the region. Generally those sort of winds aren’t that great for most of the Santa Barbara point breaks but there are some little nuggets of spots, in both Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties that might be clean enough (and see some new NW swell) to stay surfable.





As always these fronts are a total pain from a forecast perspective…the unstable nature of the storm means that conditions can change very rapidly…and so a lot depends on how the storm actually interacts with our area. As a surfer it pays to keep a close eye on things, particularly if we are starting to get new swell, which in this case we are. Personally even though the forecasts are calling for funky morning winds doesn’t mean that I trust them 100%...I will probably get up and at least give the cams a morning run-through, and who knows we might get lucky and the winds will hold off for a while. On the other hand…if it is already raining…I don’t think I will be too stoked on the water quality even if the winds are good.

Here are tides…

12:14AM LDT 0.0 L
06:49AM LDT 4.5 H
12:26PM LDT 2.0 L
06:06PM LDT 5.1 H