Waves for Wednesday – Cleaning up and getting a little NW’erly

Wednesday will be a surf day.

Our swell mix, which starts off sort of W-WNW, will shift more NW’erly and drop throughout the day…look for the morning swell direction to be about 275-300, and the by the afternoon it will have shifted more to the 290-300 range. Small SSW swell (190-210) will hold in the background.

Check out how the swell shifts and fades through the day…









Surf size is really going to depend on where you are located and when you surf tomorrow. San Diego will stay fairly big all day, with most of the energy hitting through Southern SD. Average spots in that county will be around chest-head high while the standout NW spots see some overhead+ sets mixing in.

The NW spots up towards Ventura and a lot of the South Bay…will be more in the chest-shoulder high range with some head high and head high+ sets through the morning but the steeper swell angle and dropping energy will start to shave off some size by the afternoon.

The lesser exposed spots, like most of the breaks through Orange County, Santa Barbara, and North LA, will be in the waist-chest high range but with a few more consistent chest-shoulder high sets through the morning. These areas, because of the more northerly swell angle, will drop off the fastest as things switch around.

Windwise things look pretty good…mostly light/moderate N-NNE winds in the morning, which are a little side-offshore for some areas and really offshore for others. Looks like super chilly am air temps and the water itself isn’t going to be feeling all that great thanks to the brutal winds that pushed through on Tuesday. I would definitely plan on the winter suit for the dawn patrol tomorrow…maybe booties and a squid-lid if you live in a spot that lets the morning winds blow through with some extra pep. Afternoon winds look remarkably light…so there might be a chance for some afternoon surf, particularly at spots that already have some wind protection (kelp, high cliffs, some sort of structure).

So like I said it looks like a surf day tomorrow…still plenty of swell, and it looks like shape should be pretty clean in the morning since the winds shift offshore a couple of hours before sunup. Expect that stacked up windswell shape and slight gutlessness that you get with shorter-period swells but there will plenty of waves and it should still be crossed up enough that most spots will have some decent corners. You might want to wait for things to warm up a little (air temps are supposed to creep up tomorrow)…I think that the winds and the swell will stick around long enough to keep fun waves through midday…but watch for a bit more onshore bump and dropping swell the later in the day you hit it.

Here are the tides…

12/23/2009 Wednesday
02:06AM LST 3.9 H
07:55AM LST 2.6 L
12:38PM LST 3.4 H
07:41PM LST 1.2 L