Waves for Wednesday – New WNW swell but with some texture

Wednesday will see some new WNW-NW swell but expect some onshore texture as well…overall it will be surfable but I wish we could guarantee that it would be clean.

New WNW-NW swell (280-300) moves in and peaks on Wednesday. The swell, while it is filling in on the buoys this afternoon, didn’t show a ton of the longer-period energy on any of the West Coast buoys…which isn’t a great sign…not enough to write-off the swell or anything but I think I am going to lower my expectations on this one just a bit…shave a little bit of size off the wave heights.

The Harvest buoy was showing a lift over the last 12 hours but a lot of the energy is around the 11-14 second range which means wind speeds didn’t get super intense inside the storm. That being said…there WILL be new and more consistent surf than we saw on Tuesday, which is better than nothing in my book.



As the swell peaks on Wednesday we can expect average WNW facing breaks to be in the waist-chest high range…with some less consistent shoulder high sets mixing in. The standout NW facing spots in Ventura, the South Bay, and South San Diego, will have shoulder-head high surf with overhead sets showing on the lower tides. I think that S. San Diego will have a few bigger waves now and then…but they won’t be all that consistent.

Winds look mostly light in the morning though the weather models aren’t agreeing on what direction we will end up seeing. Looking at the charts…we can expect light and variable winds through Santa Barbara down through North LA…and then light/variable onshore texture starting around the South Bay and holding down through San Diego. At this point it looks like winds will stay below 5-6 knots for the early morning, but there may be some pockets of stronger winds here and there. Afternoon winds strengthen out of the WNW around 10-15 knots for most areas.



I am a little bummed on how the swell not showing as much energy on the buoys as I thought it would…and that winds look a little funky in the morning…but it isn’t as bleak as all that. Like I said above, there will be a new swell in the water, the periods are pretty short but that actually helps out a few more regions, like Santa Barbara and the South Bay that do pretty well on the shorter-period energy. I would try and get on it early if you can…winds look lightest in the morning and the tide will be pretty low for the dawn patrol. Cross your fingers that the winds don’t screw us up too much too early.

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…

02/03/2010 Wednesday
06:13AM LST 0.8 L
11:53AM LST 3.9 H
06:01PM LST 0.7 L