Thursday’s Surf – Finally a few clean waves

Thursday looks like a halfway decent surf day.

We will have a mix of slowly fading WNW windswell, leftover S-SW swell, and some new SW swell (200-220) that will be arriving with long-period energy through the morning filling in slowly throughout the day.

Most exposed breaks will hold surf in the knee-chest high range. Standout SW facing spots, and good combo breaks will be more consistently around chest high and will start to see a few chest-shoulder high sets sneaking through as we get closer to the afternoon.

The new SW’er may be a little inconsistent at times so expect to wait around for sets.

Winds will be much better than we experienced on Wednesday. Look for them to start off mostly light and variable to light ESE (down through OC and San Diego)…all areas should stay below 5-knots in the morning. These winds shift onshore through the day and eventually push in out of the W around 10-12+ knots for the afternoon.

San Diego and South OC will likely be your best bet for surf tomorrow. They will both have decent exposure to both the WNW and SW swell mix, which will let the windswell fill in the gaps between the SW sets. The north South Bay and Southern Ventura will be decent fall-back regions but won’t have much of the building SW energy.

Don’t expect it to be outstanding tomorrow…just a lot better than it has been for the last few days. I would still probably make a cam check in the morning…just so you don’t get skunked by the tide…or pick a shadowed spot on accident.

Playful wave alert - Don't bury the North Pacific...it's not dead yet.

I was about ready to put up the "closed for the season" sign for the North Pacific Storm Track but as usual Mother Nature has different plans.

Over the past 24+ hours a decent little storm spun up into a holding position NNE of Hawaii, just off the edge of the Gulf of Alaska.

Now before you get all excited...this is definitely not a big storm...it isn't even a large or strong storm...it has just enough energy to make me want to mention it in the blog.

The good news is that it will be kicking out a string of playful sized swell for Northern California and as a bonus it will send out a small pulse of WNW energy for Southern California as well.

Here is are a few pics of the system

This is the QUIKSCAT Satellite



This is the wavewatchIII wave model



And here is the FNMOC - EFS Gale Warning ensemble (which basically tells you where strong winds are forecast to develop)



Yes I know..."lots of pretty pictures...thanks for sharing...how about some surf?"

Whatever jerks...here are the forecasts for this system

Northern California will see W-WNW swell (280-300) arriving throughout the day on Saturday and eventually peaking overnight into Sunday. As the swell peaks look for W facing breaks to have surf in the waist-shoulder high+ range while the standout spots see some overhead sets mixing in at times. Winds should be only OK for this period...NW flow around 10-15 knots will keep some of the more exposed breaks fairly bumpy...but the better westerly angle of this swell means that more energy will be able to wrap into the more protected spots. Essentially we will have some decent size surf at the sheltered areas of Santa Cruz and the Central Coast along with some protection from the wind. (also worth noting that this storm is expected to jump in the Gulf over the next 48-72 hours and in the process set up a steeper NW swell for early next week).

Southern California (and Baja Norte) will see this swell arrive slowly on Sunday...then peak Sunday afternoon into Monday. It won't be big...exposed breaks will be around knee-waist high with some chest high sets...but it will help to cross up some small SW swell at the combo breaks adding a little size, more consistency, and better shape at the top spots.

Anyway like I said nothing to get super fired up about but since the NPAC is about to close up shop I thought it would be worth mentioning.