Tuesday’s Surf – Building W swell and extra-poo water

Tuesday won’t be a surf day...oh there might be a few pockets of what looks like rideable waves through the morning but water quality is going to be very poor/hazardous…so if you are concerned about your health you might want to sit the next few days out.

New W swell (260-300 basically all over the freaking place) will be on the rise on Tuesday…with both long-period energy from the storm as it was further off the coast and the short-period slop that its winds are generating as it moves over us. Look for both Santa Barbara and Ventura to see a pretty significant increase in size early on Tuesday, while spots further south start off slower…but with San Diego being a bit of an exception thanks to its exposure to the swell directions on the previous swell mix. By the afternoon/evening all regions will be on the rise and we can expect some pretty large surf hitting all of the W-WNW facing beaches on Wednesday with the largest surf likely peaking Thursday and Friday.



Sizewise we can expect the average W facing breaks to see surf in the shoulder-head high range pretty consistently with some overhead sets becoming more and more frequent as we head into the afternoon. The top WNW-NW spots, particularly Ventura, San Diego, and the South Bay, will be running consistently head high to a couple of feet overhead in the morning and then larger well-overhead sets mixing in by the end of the day.

Windwise it will be pretty marginal for most areas tomorrow…OC and San Diego will both have predominately S winds in the 10-15 knot range for the morning and stronger squally conditions for the afternoon…along with more rain.

LA up through Santa Barbara will likely have more S-SE winds in the 10-20 knot range…which, if it is more SE’erly, isn’t the worst direction for many areas. I don’t know that shape will improve all that much but if we were going to see some sort of surfable shape on Tuesday it would be at spots that have decent protection from those sort of winds…likely the breaks in SB, Ventura, and LA that the SE winds blow more offshore. Personally I think that the water quality is going to be so bad that you will be taking a pretty legitimate risk surfing on Tuesday…but if you have to paddle out, then I would focus on these areas.



One thing to keep in mind is that these storms are pretty dynamic…and the wind/weather models are going to really struggle to keep up with all of the subtleties that can crop up break to break. Nothing is going to beat the Mark-IV eyeball in terms of gauging the conditions and shape of the surf…but with all of the weather and generally onshore/side-onshore flow that we are going to get from the wind I wouldn’t plan on spending a lot of time looking for quality surf. Anyway you guys probably get the picture on how I feel about the water quality stuff…I will be sitting the next several days out until some of the nastiness can settle out.

Make sure to read the regional forecasts for more details on how the swell will affect each county.

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…hope you guys stay dry.

01/19/2010 Tuesday
04:57AM LST 1.9 L
10:35AM LST 4.3 H
05:28PM LST 0.5 L
11:56PM LST 4.1 H