Waves for the Weekend – Sloppy Saturday, then cleaner Sunday with some large stormy W swell

Saturday does not look like surf day. Sunday will be much bigger as new W swell arrives but wind/conditions may not clean up all that much.

So Saturday will start with mosty leftovers, buried by the high tide, early in the morning…it will also have plenty of increasing S-SW winds and increasing periods of rain. By the afternoon a large shot of W-NW swell (275-300) starts to arrive, this will build overnight and eventually peak on Sunday. The stormy S-SW winds will turn NW’erly after midnight on Saturday and hold that NW’erly flow through most of Sunday.



Saturday will be pretty small in the morning…mostly knee-waist high at the average spots and some chest high+ sets at the standout WNW-NW spots. Shape will be slow and soft thanks to the high tide. Add in the S-SW winds (10-15+ knots) and it sounds like a good reason to stay in bed. There may be a couple of protected spots through the morning but the tide and lack of swell won’t really let much surf sneak into those areas.



Sunday a much, much bigger W-NW swell (275-300) arrives and peaks throughout the day. At this point the swell looks pretty hefty, particularly at the spots that have direct exposure to the WNW-NW.



Look for surf in the easy shoulder-overhead range for most W facing breaks. The better WNW facing spots will be running consistently head high to a couple of feet overhead…and possibly bigger at times. The top NW facing breaks, in Ventura, the South Bay, and San Diego, will have surf in the overhead to well overhead range and sets hitting near the double-overhead range. The swell actually gets a direct shot at Southern San Diego…so there is a shot at some bigger surf filtering into that region.

Winds look a bit suspect, but overall not as bad as Saturday…right now the models aren’t really matching up that well…check em out…



You can see that the COAMPS model is pretty heavy on the winds for the morning…showing steady onshore W-WNW winds, 10-20 knots, blowing through most areas pretty much from sunrise on.



The NWS graphical forecast is showing NW winds, strongest up around Ventura and Santa Barbara, but lighter as you move down through LA, OC, and San Diego.

Personally I don’t really trust either of the models all that much…a lot is going to depend on how fast the front moves through the area Saturday afternoon/night…if it can speed through we will see the ridge build in faster that would help clean up conditions. Based on what I am seeing I think that we plan on some light/moderate WNW-NW winds for the morning, maybe not enough to blow it out…but enough to get some bump texture on things. If you have to surf (in the poo water) then I would plan on sticking to spots that can handle the NW winds…you might even want to check some of the lesser exposed areas, there will be enough W in this swell to wrap energy into the more S-SW facing breaks, it won’t be as big as the W facing spots but they might dodge the wind a bit better.

When you get down to it this is another one of those weekends where, since we have a ton of swell in the water, that it may pay off to keep your “weather eye” on conditions…hopefully the dynamic nature of the storm will crack open a few surf windows as it passes on through. As usual if you surf send me a report and let me know how it is.

Make sure to check out the regional forecasts for the details for each county.

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…

02/27/2010 Saturday
01:38AM LST 0.9 L
07:37AM LST 6.1 H
02:29PM LST -1.2 L
08:37PM LST 4.8 H

02/28/2010 Sunday
02:26AM LST 0.4 L
08:23AM LST 6.0 H
03:03PM LST -1.1 L
09:10PM LST 5.2 H

Waves for Wednesday – New messy W swell

Wednesday is not looking like a surf day for most areas…but a couple of random, protected, pockets may be lurking out there as this storm slowly moves through the region.

Swellwise we are going to see a mix of building W-NW swell (270-300 but with most of the energy around 285-300) and some new long-period S-SSW swell (180-200) from the Southern Hemisphere. You can already see some of the W swell starting to leak through the outer waters on the CDIP chart…



…by morning this W swell will be starting to hit the beaches but it doesn’t look like the peak of the swell will actually start to arrive until late in the afternoon, likely pushing through overnight into Thursday.

Just for the curious (nerd alert)…here are a couple of satellite passes from the NOAA/GOES group and the QuikSCAT bird.





Sometimes, when you have storms with this close proximity, (and with the California Buoy #49059 still out of commission, which would be a really good tool to have right now), it is nice to get a better look at the “analysis” data (stuff that is actually happening)...compared to just the forecast and computer model data. In this case, I wanted to make sure that we weren’t seeing incredibly strong winds coming in below the #46006 buoy…if we were then we would have been potentially looking at a much larger and more westerly swell than the buoys and models may have been showing.

Using multiple sources, like those two images above, are a great way to get a better feel as to what to look for in future situations when you might not have both data sources. It totally treads deeply into the “weather nerd” territory…but if you get good at interpreting the satellite photos it can really help you with gaps in your information. Anyways…sorry drifted off topic there for a moment…on to the surf…

Our surf on Wednesday will be in the chest-shoulder high+ range for the average exposed spots…basically breaks that only have marginal exposure to the building WNW-NW energy. The top WNW-NW facing breaks, mostly in Ventura, the South Bay, and San Diego, will be in the shoulder-head high range with some overhead sets starting to become more consistent by the afternoon evening.

Weather/Conditions/Shape unfortunately doesn’t look great for many places…forecasts are calling for steady S-SW winds around 10-15 knots for most of Santa Barbara down through Orange County. A couple of the local wind models are calling for SE winds for parts of San Diego…not sure how accurate that is…but it is worth keeping an eye on it if you live down that way. Look for the Southerly winds to stay pretty steady throughout the day and bring in rain, heavy at times, as well.





Since most spots get pretty tweaked shapewise by the southerly winds I don’t think that it is going to be very surfable tomorrow…also a lot depends on how much SW those winds get…the more westerly they become the less breaks we see that have some wind protection. Overall I wouldn’t spend a lot of time looking for waves tomorrow…definitely wouldn’t drive a ton anywhere…but if you live close to a S wind protected break, that likes W swell, it might be worth giving it a couple of quick checks throughout the day to see if it holds together as the swell comes up.

Here are the tides…

12:57AM LDT 0.0 L
07:18AM LDT 5.0 H
01:19PM LDT 1.2 L
07:04PM LDT 5.2 H

If you guys get out and get some waves tomorrow make sure to drop me a quick report.