Oh winds may not be too bad through the morning…but there is a lot of disorganized swell pushing through at the exposed breaks and none of it looks particularly surfable…mostly it just looks nasty.
We are seeing a incredibly strong W-NW swell (270-300 but mostly coming in around 290-300) impacting Southern California here on Tuesday afternoon (don’t forget the tornado watches!)…and this isn’t really the peak of the swell…this first swell will continue to build along the coasts tonight and peak on Wednesday. Here is the kicker…there is a second larger shot of WNW-NW swell lining up for the end of the week…likely peaking on Friday. Yeah…that wasn’t a typo…I said there is a bigger swell setting up for the end of the week.
I honestly can’t remember when I saw readings like this on the Harvest Buoy…
25-feet @ 16-seconds…(come on this is getting pretty ridiculous)…this swell will be pushing through the nearshore islands for the rest of the day steadily increasing wave heights along our beaches. Fortunately it won’t be quite as large as it is showing on the outer buoys thanks in part to shadowing from the islands and Point Conception…but still it will on the big side so please be careful, stay off things like rocks, jetties, piers, ect, ect...the ocean can get pretty hairy with this much energy pushing around.
Average W-WNW facing spots can expect overhead to well-overhead surf pretty consistently…with some bigger sets mixing in at times, probably even a few of the better breaks seeing sets close to double-overhead. The standout WNW-NW facing spots in Ventura, the South Bay, and South San Diego can expect consistent well-overhead to double-overhead surf with some bigger bomb sets mixing in throughout the day. The actual shape of the surf is going to be pretty poor...mostly onshore/side onshore winds and just the stacked up nature of the storm swell won’t be doing us any favors…and then also there is just the size of the swell…maxing out a lot of spots and chewing through most of the sandbars as well (fortunately the rain should set up some more).
Weatherwise we get another dose of storm activity on Wednesday…this one is forecast to be one of the stronger ones that we see this week. Current wind models are expecting S-SE winds 15-25 knots in the morning and then SW winds around 20-30+ knots for the afternoon. Showers and thunderstorms early and then just steady rain for the evening. Yet another storm arrives on Thursday…so yeah for us.
So expect the craziness to continue tomorrow…with the water quality still holding in the hazardous levels. (really it will probably take a few days without rain before it will clear up all that much). Again there are going to be some semi-clean pockets out there…maybe even slightly, almost, sort-of, surfable looking at the really protected breaks (the ones that are shadowed from the swell and like S-SE winds)…but after watch the extra-brown water flowing out the river for a while this afternoon I would probably give it a skip if I were you.
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.
01/20/2010 Wednesday
05:48AM LST 1.9 L
11:12AM LST 3.7 H
05:51PM LST 0.9 L
2 comments:
no thanks i like life.. i like to surf but i like to live more.
any of you boys want to test your courage? try paddling out at Tijuana Sloughs today through Friday. Monster sets; and I mean monster. First you have to paddle a quarter of a mile through Mexican crapola, then dodge the sharks that ARE there, then take your chances dropping in on a 25-30 footer and hope like heck you make it. Anyone???
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