Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Thursday’s Surf – Playful and slightly less brown

Thursday, even though the surf will be smaller, will be a surf day…once the stupid morning tide drops a bit.

We are going to see a mix of fading WNW-NW swell (280-300) and some building S-SSW swell (180-210). The S-SSW’er isn’t going to be huge…but it will have enough to combo up with the WNW-NW’er at the well exposed beach breaks setting up a few playful peaks as everything mixes together.



Sizewise for the purely WNW-NW spots it is going to feel a lot smaller on Thursday…the combo spots are going to be smaller as well but won’t drop off quite as fast. Look for average WNW facing breaks and the ok combo spots to see surf in the waist-chest high range with some less consistent shoulder high sets. Top WNW breaks and the excellent combo breaks will be more in the chest-shoulder high range…with a few head high peaks coming through at the best breaks. Shape will be a little slow in the morning thanks to the high tide but it will improve as the tide backs down.

Winds look good…mostly light and variable to slightly offshore in the morning…and then a sort of swirly variable texture brewing up in the afternoon, nothing go much over 10-knots. Winds look light enough that we could have a late afternoon clean up, not super glassy, but light enough to smooth things out a bit.



I think that tomorrow will be kind of fun after the tide drops…I think that the swell mix, even though it is losing size, will still be able to put fun waves into both the winter spots and the combo breaks. Water quality is still a bit iffy…it just stopped raining earlier this morning and that last little burst just jumped on the back of the big nasty swill that got pumped out last week. I would still try to avoid rivers, storm-drains, harbors…basically anything that water flows out of...but at least we will have had a day or so for the crap to dilute a bit.

Make sure to check the regional forecasts to see how the swell mix affects the different stretches of coastline.

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…

01/28/2010 Thursday
12:49AM LST 1.8 L
06:57AM LST 6.4 H
02:21PM LST -1.5 L
08:39PM LST 3.9 H

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So is N County considered average W facing? Cause it was FLAT today. Super flat. Make me yearn for Goldie Hawn flat. Not seeing much on the buoys either, so I can't figure out why you're calling for decent surf tomorrow.

What am I missing?

BTW, that wasn't a criticism or anything.

Anonymous said...

How far north? If you go too far, you're stuck behind ... wait for it ... Catalina! Check CDIP - you can see how far south you need to get to clear the island.

As for yesterday, I wasn't expecting anything, so I didn't take my board along for a check. Sure enough, south side looked windy, but as I drove up the coast a tad, it started getting a lot cleaner.

By the time I got to an intermediate break, it was looking downright glassy & inviting. Hmm, mental note.

SC Fool said...

Can you beleive all these crazy people out there swimming in that sewer? I have not surfed in almost two weeks. I'm still waiting for "less brown". I'll probably go this out sometime this weekend if it doesn't rain again. Does anybody have any sewage related illnesses to report?

Anonymous said...

Anyone surfing in N County yet? Water looks green, but it just rained again. I already had the flu and 2 sinus infections this year and I'm not risking anything, but I really want to surf.

Anonymous said...

i surfed sunset pt. in north LA last weekend (Sat and Sun) - the water was kind of nasty but i never got sick. I also checked Venice sunday and no one was out so maybe it was a lot worse there