Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Waves for Wednesday – Starting slow but building through the afternoon

Wednesday will be more surfable than the last couple of days…but not really in the morning.

For most regions don’t expect to see much, if any, increase in surf for the dawn patrol. A new mix of WNW-NW swell, a blend of both windswell from local winds and some medium-short period energy from a storm further off the California Coast, will be slowly filling in through the day. This new WNW-NW energy will be pushing in from 280-300 degrees but the main part of the swell will be a steeper angled 290-300 degrees. SW swell (200-220) will be slowly pushing up in the background as well…but will be pretty small and inconsistent overall.

Wednesday Morning…around 5am



Wednesday afternoon…around 5pm



Wave heights for the morning will continue to be the ankle-knee high shore-lappers we saw on Tuesday...the high tide will still be an issue…so don’t expect much in the way of rideable shape. The top spots will be slightly bigger…knee-waist high on sets…but again soft and slow on the shape.

The counties closer to Point Conception, Santa Barbara and Ventura, have a shot at seeing a little more surf in the morning as the new swell wraps into the region. I don’t think we should expect a big increase…but it will be worth at least looking at the cams, and maybe a real quick drive-by if you live close.

By the afternoon…we can expect the average WNW facing spots to build into the waist-chest high range…and the top spots, mostly through Ventura, to see some chest-shoulder high+ surf. San Diego and South Bay standouts may have some similar sizes by sundown…but it looks like a lot of the energy will arrive after dark. (Curse you short winter days!) Make sure to check out your regional forecast for more details.

Winds are not the greatest looking on Wednesday…the remains of a cold front are expected to push through the area…driving up WNW-NW winds across the region. These look the strongest up towards Santa Barbara and Ventura…and a bit more mellow as you head down towards OC and San Diego. I don’t think it will be all that bad through the morning…mostly light/variable flow early, but it does look like those winds will increase pretty quickly.

Wednesday AM Winds



Wednesday PM winds



I wish that the surf would hurry up and get here...I missed out on the weekend windswell so it feels like forever since we had waves. Unfortunately we will have to wait at least a little longer for the swell mix to fill in. Personally I am going to start checking the beach as the tide drops around lunchtime…hopefully the local winds won’t get too bad before a few new lines start coming in.

Here are the tides…

11/18/2009 Wednesday
02:40AM LST 2.4 L
08:50AM LST 6.0 H
04:26PM LST -0.5 L
10:58PM LST 3.6 H

Links for the regional forecasts…

Santa Barbara Surf Forecast - http://socalforecastsb.blogspot.com/
Ventura Surf Forecast - http://socalforecastven.blogspot.com/
Los Angeles Surf Forecast - http://socalforecastla.blogspot.com/
Orange County Surf Forecast - http://socalforecastoc.blogspot.com/
San Diego Surf Forecast - http://socalforecastsd.blogspot.com/

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

see, it's the weekend again. what the hell???

Anonymous said...

No..No.. it's definitely Tuesday. The swell will pick up on Wednesday and peak on Thursday. Sounds like a mid week swell to me, unless you are republican, which would mean-yes, this swell happening during the your weekend.

Anonymous said...

At least us republicans can write correctly!!!

Anonymous said...

amen, brother!

Anonymous said...

Is there a NRL-COAMPS wind product like the one shown here for the Monterey Bay Area? I can't find the correct model/product on their site.

Thanks,

WP

Unknown said...

There is a COAMPS model for the Bay Area/Central Coast…it doesn’t have the same sort of scale that the SOCAL one does, but it can give you a decent look at the winds.

You can find the model here

http://www.sccoos.org/data/coamps/coamps.html

Steps…

1. Click on the latest Model Run (Usually the first URL on the list under NAVAIR_West)
2. Once the page loads scroll down till you get to the GRID: 3 Table
3. Find the Row with: 10m Wind Speed/ Steamlines/ Central
4. Then pick either the forecast hour you want or the animator and it will give you the image

You can find the images for SOCAL and NORCAL on this one too…

Socal is the ROW with - 10m Wind Speed/ Steamlines/ Southern
Norcal is the ROW with - 10m Wind Speed/ Steamlines/ Northern

Hope this helps…

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much, exactly what I was looking for!

WP