Southern California Long-range Surf Forecast – 7/15/2010

Forecast Overview
- Playful sized surf continues into Friday.
- A new little pulse of S swell helps to keep the surf going on Saturday.
- Sunday starts off fun with more overlapping energy. New long-period S-SW swell shows on the buoys later in the evening.
- The new S-SW swell starts filling in throughout Monday, starting off slow in the morning but building through the end of the day.
- Tuesday and Wednesday the S-SW peaks with head high surf for most spots, and some overhead+ waves at the standouts.
- Look for the swell to trail off through the end of the week…but a second S swell will keep the surf from fading to much.

Short Range (next 4 days)

Friday – (Fun and hot…but with ‘nad freezing water)
On Friday there will be a couple of S-SW swells (180-210) mixing with some local WNW-NW windswell. Most spots will be in the knee-waist high range with some inconsistent chest high sets at the better SW exposed spots. The standout S-SW breaks will be in the chest-shoulder high range…with a chance at some shoulder-high+ sets as we move through the tide push during the morning. Winds/Weather: Winds will fairly light in the morning…mostly clean but with a few pockets of onshore texture in a few areas. NW winds in the 10-15 knot range will move in and peak through the afternoon…but expect some onshore flow to get going around midmorning.



Saturday – (still playful)
The string of minor S and SW swells will continue to push in on Saturday…along with some NW windswell. Most spots will continue to see the knee-waist high range with some inconsistent chest high sets at the average SW exposed spots. Chest-shoulder high surf will continue to show at the standout SW breaks. Winds/Weather: Winds will still be pretty light in the morning but there will be a bit more onshore flow getting a start early in the day. Look for building onshore flow by midday and then W-NW winds 10-15+ knots by later in the afternoon.



Sunday - (more fun waves with some long-period energy sneaking in late)
The mix of playful Southern Hemi swells continues on Sunday (they are never-ending!). Look for more knee-waist high+ surf at the average spots and more waist-shoulder surf at the standouts…with a chance for some rare bigger sets hitting late in the day. Winds/Weather: Overall wind looks lighter on Sunday…expect clean conditions through the early morning with a few areas of light texture (maybe even light offshore texture in a few lucky spots). WNW winds 10-15+ knots will ramp up again in the afternoon.



Monday - (a slow start but building S-SW swell fills in through the afternoon)
The new S-SW swell (190-210) will be showing some new, but still long-period surf through the morning. It looks like the bigger waves will be inconsistent and a bit selective on which spots will see much size through the first part of the day. I am still expecting chest-shoulder high sets for the average S-SW facing breaks and some head high+ sets hitting the standout spots. We will have some more consistent overhead surf by the afternoon. This new round of swell will peak with bigger and more consistent surf on Tuesday and Wednesday. Winds/Weather: Look for light and variable to light/offshore winds through the morning and then WNW winds around 10-15 knots for the afternoon.



Long-Range

North Pacific
Pretty darn slow in the NPAC…high-pressure is locking down most of the storm track and any storm activity that is showing is weak and unorganized. No real swell, except for on and off local windswell is expected.



South Pacific
The SPAC is kick a little more ass this week…late last weekend we had another good sized storm develop down in the Southern Ocean between Tahiti and Chile. This system pulled together with some 40-50 knot winds with some gusts hitting the 60-65 knot range. This bad-boy kicked out a good sized SSW-SW swell (190-215) that will be arriving through Monday (July 19) and then peaking Tuesday and Wednesday (July 20-21).



This SSW-SW swell looks good for shoulder-head high surf for most of the S-SW facing spots in Socal (expect for a few shadowed ones) along with some overhead+ surf at the standouts…probably up to a couple of feet overhead on the better tides. A few select spots that can focus these types of swells will have some bigger waves. If you are interested in taking a closer look at this storm, or want to know how it will hit Central America and Mainland Mexico, you can check out the Swell Alert that I sent out a couple of days ago.



Further out there is a second storm following close behind this first system…and we can expect it to tack on a fun S swell (180-200) on the tail end of the bigger SSW-SW as it fades away. Basically this new swell will arrive on Saturday-Sunday (July 24-25) and will keep the surf in the chest-shoulder high+ range at the average spots along with a few overhead sets still showing at the standout breaks.



Even Further Out the South Pacific sort of quiets down…well at least lets a bit of a gap form between this system and the next…it basically means that we will have a few days of weaker surf, but we won’t go totally flat. I am seeing more strong storm activity starting to brew push out from under Australia on the long-range charts…so we will probably see more swell heading our way for the beginning of August.

Tropics
We have a new tropical storm brewing up in our tropics…it is currently tropical depression 6…or TD-06e. But it looks like it will become a small Tropical Storm by the afternoon on Friday.



While this one will be in our swell window it isn’t very big and it will just barely become a tropical storm. At this point I am not expecting much swell from it…and what it does send will probably get lost in the stronger Southern Hemi swell.



the Next Long-range forecast will be posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010.

Adam Wright
Surf Forecaster
http://www.socalsurf.com/