Monday, June 14, 2010

Tuesday’s Surf – SW swell and negative low-tide drainers

Tuesday will be surfable…but watch out for the negative low tide that drains out a lot of the surf through the morning.

Our surf will be a mix of holding SW swell (190-215) and some background WNW-NW windswell. The SW swell is a bit inconsistent but fun at the exposed spots…just expect some waiting between the sets…and look for the SW’er to start to wind down by the afternoon.



Average SW facing spots and the better combo breaks will be in the waist-chest high range on Tuesday. The standout SW facing spots, mostly in Orange County, will have some chest-shoulder high waves with some inconsistent head high sets (possibly getting a little bigger as the tides even out a bit).

Winds look ok, not great…but not hurting us too much either. We will have a slight eddy on Tuesday but it looks like light/variable to light S winds for most spots in the morning…in general winds will be below 5 knots, with the cleanest conditions in LA/Ventura and some slight texture to OC and SD. Look for building W-WNW winds hitting 10-15 knots by the afternoon.



Tuesday looks like a decent surf day, nothing too special, but rideable wit light winds and water that continues to warm up. Like a lot of you noticed the negative low-tide did not do us any favors on Monday (I should have called out that low-tide better in my Monday update)…and I expect that to be the case again on Tuesday. If you have to surf super early you are going to want to stick with SW facing spots that really like/need the low-tide to work…anywhere else is going to be too small or too drained out to be much fun. I still think the points/reefs will be the most fun on this SW swell…but with the windwell coming up a touch there may be a few more corners at the combo spots.

06/15/2010 Tuesday
06:28AM LDT -1.1 L (sucky!)
01:03PM LDT 3.8 H
05:56PM LDT 2.2 L
11:50PM LDT 5.7 H

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Adam

is the surface wind model COAMPS NAVAIR_WEST 6.0km free to the public? If so is there a link you can provide?

Thanks. I enjoy reading your blogs. Keep up the good work.

Ethan

Unknown said...

Ethan - Here is the link...

http://www.sccoos.org/data/coamps/coamps.html

unfortunately the way they have the forecast set up is that it adds a whole new "forecast run" every 12 hours so you have to click the run you want to see and it drops you into the product list.

You want to scroll down to Grid 3 and then go to the row with:

"10m Wind Speed/ Streamlines/ Southern"

...that row has all the forecasts in it broken out in hourly segments. I like to use the animator so you can see the subtle changes in the winds as the forecast progresses.

I like this model but it has plenty of drawbacks, the 10m winds are pretty sensitive so it has a tendency to overcall the wind flow and that "pattern" that it shows us may look like junky winds but in real-life they will be much lighter.

It also has a tendency to get really lost when forecasting the eddy...it rarely matches up with the positioning of the actual eddy after it develops.

Anonymous said...

My face when i checked this morning reports.... :-/

Anonymous said...

why do we even bother with trying to surf in May and June? it's almost always a total joke. i hate socal at this time of year.

Anonymous said...

Where in socal do you live? ^

Anonymous said...

I'll agree with May, but that first week of June the air was stagnant and warm all day. Warmer water. Nice skies. Sometimes there is more to surfing than catching waves. I know everyone goes surfing for the waves, but if its marginal then break out the foamie and 420 it.

Matthew Marbach said...

hey Adam, thanks for the link. That site is really cool, if only i could figure out how to use it...I got the animations going and i realize I'm seeing a ton of valuable information which is indecipherable to me because I'm a toddler trying to eat steak. Maybe you can cut it up for me a bit, or chew it even, so i can start to understand what all these lines mean.

Of course light blues are better than greens, and i see an eddy spinning up ever now and then. My main problem is correlating this numerical/data program to what might actually be going on at the beach. Unfortunately i cant just go outside and check.
Any nudges in the right direction and i might be able to blindly feel my way through this dark alley.

The more scientific the better and any explanation on some of the basic ways the high/low pressure likes to move around and how you can see those pressure systems through changes on the wind maps.

Good stuff on Down the Line - you got me thinking.
Thanks

Anonymous said...

Ya summer is definetly so cals best season, a few regions really suck but socalis finest really shine in summer, plus warm water and theres always something to surf.

Anonymous said...

kookie senses are tingling. BAD. help1