Sloppy conditions continue into Tuesday but things look a lot better later this week. Look for cleaner winds and better weather to wander through on Wednesday and hold into the upcoming weekend. New S-SSW swell shows late on Thursday, peaks Friday and Saturday, before slowly starting to fade early next week.
Short Range (next 4 days)
Tuesday – (messy)
Tuesday doesn’t look like much of a surf day. Onshore winds will continue to push over the area and the already struggling SW swell will fade out through the background. Most spots will be in the waist-high range with some chest-shoulder high+ sets for the NW standouts (mostly in South San Diego) will see some head high sets at the breaks that focus/like NW windswell. Winds/Weather: The charts are still looking a bit unstable on Tuesday…NW winds are forecast to pick up pretty early through midmorning topping out 10-15+ before lunch. NW winds 15-20 knots will be on tap for the afternoon.
Wednesday – (cleaning up and fading away)
The swell mix fades on Wednesday with the NW windswell backing off and the S-SW leftovers holding mostly to the background. Most spots will be in the knee-waist high range with some inconsistent chest-high sets. A few of the really good NW/SW combo spots, mostly down in SD/OC, will have some bigger sets lurking around the lower tides. Winds/Weather: Winds go light and variable to light offshore in the morning on Wednesday. These will shift onshore around mid-morning and strengthen to the 10-15 knot range by the afternoon.
Thursday – (just waiting…)
Thursday won’t start off very big…mostly leftover windswell and SW swell in the water for the morning. Look for the morning to be in the knee-waist high range with some inconsistent chest high sets for most areas. Things do start to increase at the S-SW standouts slightly by the afternoon as long-period energy from our new S-SSW swell (180-210) fills in…I don’t expect a ton of new size before sundown but the sets should feel “peppier” and more consistent by late in the day. Winds/Weather: Light winds on tap for the morning…mostly light and variable to light offshore for the dawn patrol…and then W-NW winds 10-15 knots moving in by the afternoon.
Friday – (new swell fills in fast)
The S-SSW swell (180-210) moves in and peaks on Friday…NW windswell holds smaller in the background. At this point it looks like the peak hits more for the afternoon…but there will be plenty of energy showing through the morning as well. Look for average S facing spots to see surf in the chest-head high range. The standout S-SSW facing breaks, mostly through Orange County and parts of San Diego, will see some shoulder-overhead surf fairly consistently with some bigger sets going a couple of feet+ overhead at times. Breaks that can really focus this sort of swell will be bigger. Winds/Weather: Light again for the morning…mostly light and variable with a touch of eddy circulation (not enough to get super funky). Look for more WNW-NW wind to build into the 10-15 knot range by the afternoon.
Long-Range
North Pacific
Is this still an ocean? Well since it is sort of a lot of water I guess I will cover it.
Just kidding…well sort of. Obviously there isn’t much going on in the North Pacific. At this point I am only expecting some very marginal NW energy from some weak storms over the dateline and some local NW windswell from winds moving down the California Coast. Basically we won’t see anything much over waist high from this part of the world for at least the next week or so.
South Pacific
we see the weekend’s SW swell fade out Tuesday and Wednesday…but it looks like things are going to start coming back up, fast, later in the week.
A large S-SW swell is going to be pushed towards…well everywhere along the east side of the Pacific…pretty much from South America up to the Pacific NW. This isn’t really a Tahiti swell or Hawaii swell, because the action is so much further east, but Mainland Mex and Central America look like they will be pretty hefty…if you like large surf…it looks like it will be worth pulling the trigger.
For Socal…we can expect some really initial energy to start to pulse up out of the SW (210-225) on the 12th, but this isn’t really part of the bigger swell, just some cast-off from the various storms as they moved into position. It will be good for some waist-chest high surf on Wednesday/early Thursday at the top spots. The main push of S swell (180-210) moves in with some looooong period (20-22 second) energy throughout the afternoon of the 13th…with the peak of the swell hitting on the Friday (May 14th) and holding into the Saturday (May 15th) before starting to fade out slowly on Sunday and into the following week.
At this point it looks like most S facing spots will be shoulder-head high with some overhead sets. The standout S facing spots will be shoulder-overhead+ with sets going a couple of feet+ overhead at times. The top spots, the real S-swell standouts, will be bigger…with inconsistent sets going a few feet+ overhead at times. The few mutant spots that can really focus a swell like this will even bigger as the swell peaks.
Further out The SPAC has been a busy bee lately….there is even more S-SSW swell lining up out the back. Another storm is forecast to form over the next 2-3 days that has a good shot to send us swell for around the 19-21st. This guy looks well-positioned and takes a really good track on the forecast as it generates this swell…so it will be interesting to see if it lives up to the model…but if it does we could be looking at yet another round of overhead S-SSW swell. Good times.
the Next Long-range forecast will be posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2010.
Adam Wright
Surf Forecaster
http://www.socalsurf.com/
