Thursday’s Flood – rain, rain, go away…

The not-surfiness of Wednesday will continue into Thursday as more rain, onshore wind, and heavy duty storm swell work us over yet again.

The storm swell, a mix of short-period chop from all over the compass…and some hefty medium/long-period WNW-NW energy (275-300+), will actually build a bit more on Thursday. It will still be a completely out of control mess for most areas (well lets just say nearly all areas) so at this point we are just splitting hairs. Lets see…was that a 15-foot hacked up wall of death or 17-footer that just washed over the pier?

http://surf.transworld.net/photos/ob-pier-swallowed-by-rogue-wave/





Sizewise…it is a big stormy mess…well-overhead at most W facing breaks with sets going double-triple+ overhead at the really exposed WNW-NW facing breaks. There is enough energy being tossed around that there are waves breaking where you would never see them normally. Seriously the wind is strong enough at times that it potentially could have waves breaking pretty much anywhere…inside harbors, bays, lakes…I thought I saw some mice ripping the inside section of the giant puddle at the end of my street (one was a Kelly Slater mouse for sure!). I am not suggesting that we go and surf those waves…just that if the winds hold on, which the forecast says they will, we should at least keep an eye out for them.

Yet another storm is forecast to move in on Thursday...it is forecast to move in around midday but have the strong S winds that usually brew up on the leading edge of the front coming in pretty much from sunrise on. Right now the models are a little hinky on what direction we will for sure see in the morning…but it looks like S-SSW winds 15-30 knots with some 35-40 knot gusts on tap for most areas. A few spots, like some of the weirdly protected areas in both Santa Barbara and the South Bay, may see some SSE winds in the morning…but expect mostly hacked up conditions throughout Socal.



Make sure to read the regional forecasts for more details on how the storm will affect each county. I will give you a hint though…it will be rainy and windy.

Regional/County Forecasts

Santa Barbara Surf Forecast
Ventura County Surf Forecast
Los Angeles County Surf Forecast
Orange County Surf Forecast
San Diego Surf Forecast

Here are the tides…in case some you guys are worried about some coastal flooding

01/21/2010 Thursday
12:30AM LST 4.1 H
06:54AM LST 1.9 L
12:01PM LST 3.2 H
06:16PM LST 1.3 L