Wednesday’s Waves – Cleaner and smaller

Wednesday looks surfable but overall size is going to be backing down.

Our WNW swell and windswell that peaked on Monday/early Tuesday will be backing down pretty steadily on Wednesday. There will be a tiny touch of southern hemi background energy but not enough to make the S facing spots work.

On average we can expect surf in the knee-waist high range. Top NW facing spots, mostly those through San Diego and Ventura, will have some waist-chest high+ sets through the early morning. Almost everything is going to shut down as the tide fills in and peaks midmorning.

Winds look decent on Wednesday...not as offshore as Tuesday...but generally light and variable to light offshore though the morning. Light onshore through the afternoon. (the Santa Ana style flow returns more on Thursday and Friday but the surf stays on the small side too, which sucks).

I think that you are going to want the small wave gear at most spots tomorrow. I managed to get out on Tuesday (around lunch up in North OC) and while there were still a few inconsistent sets my little fishy board wasn’t really all that fun...with the swell dropping the boggy shape is just going to get worse. For the bigger guys I am thinking longboard size/shape...the smaller surfers might be able to get away with a fish at the top spots.

03:44AM LST 1.6 L
09:35AM LST 5.2 H
04:34PM LST -0.3 L
10:49PM LST 4.1 H

Thursday’s Surf – Cleaner and a bit smaller

Thursday is looking like a surf day. I don’t think it will be great but it will definitely be better than we have had over the last couple of days.

We will have a mix of fading WNW windswell, a bit of WNW energy, and some background S-SW pulses.
Average breaks will hold around knee-chest high while the standout combo spots, and really good windswell breaks, see some chest-shoulder high waves on the tide push.

Winds are forecast to be much better tomorrow. Look for light and variable morning winds for most areas along with clean conditions. Afternoon winds are expected to be light as well…coming onshore out of the W around 10 knots.

I think tomorrow will be a good day to get back into the water. Like I said above I don’t think that it will be that great, there will probably be some lumpy shape to the more exposed areas thanks to the leftover windswell but winds will be light and the lower morning tide may iron out some of the bump. I would probably stick with your small wave boards…unless you live close to a super dumpy windswell spot…there probably won’t be a ton of juice behind the surf.