Waves for the weekend – Smaller swell but still fun…but with weather out the back

Both Saturday and Sunday look like surf days…but expect some increasing clouds and possibly a little wind/rain later in the day on Sunday. Next week looks really wet.

Swellwise we are going to see slightly fading W-WNW (275-300) energy on Saturday, still mostly leftovers from earlier in the week. Then on Sunday we are going to get some reinforcement of WNW swell (280-300) coming out of the approaching storm front. The swell periods don’t look particularly long…sort of around the 10-12+14 second range…so expect sort of a storm/punchy-windswell feel to things as we move into Sunday.





Sizewise both days look pretty similar…the average W facing breaks will be in the chest-shoulder high range with inconsistent head high+ sets. The tides will screw with it a little bit so try and work around the high-tide peak that hits in the midmorning. The top WNW-NW standouts in Ventura, the South Bay, and Southern San Diego, will have more consistent surf in the shoulder-overhead range with some bigger sets still sneaking through at times. Sunday may be a little more consistent…but the conditions don’t look like they are going to hold together for all that long.

Winds look good on Saturday…mostly light and variable to light offshore for the morning and mostly weak onshore winds in the afternoon. Basically it should stay surfable for the first half of the day and then see some marginal bump at the well exposed spots in the afternoon.



Sunday will start out with light/variable winds but with a touch of southerly flow starting to creep in. T he S-SSE winds will continue to strengthen as we move throughout the day and the chance of rain increases as well, with heavy rain very likely starting by Sunday night.



Overall…it looks like a fun weekend…nothing super special but still plenty playful, particularly on Saturday. The points and reefs will continue to have the best shape…since the sand is now pretty tweaked at the beach breaks…but there may be a few more makeable corners spread around as the swell backs off and the swell periods shorten up.

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 have a good one.

01/16/2010 Saturday
03:03AM LST 1.9 L
09:00AM LST 5.5 H
04:13PM LST -0.5 L
10:30PM LST 3.8 H

01/17/2010 Sunday
03:38AM LST 1.8 L
09:31AM LST 5.2 H
04:38PM LST -0.3 L
10:57PM LST 3.9 H