Surf For Friday – New waves but the swell is taking its sweet time

Friday will be a surf day…with new waves showing in the morning but the peak of the swell arriving more in the evening (and into Saturday).

So this new swell is kind of being a little bit of a ninja…the initial part of the swell is coming in pretty westerly…with the main part of the energy in the 275-285 degree range…which thanks to the position of the storm is letting it slip past our outer buoys, namely the #46006 buoy.

Normally this wouldn’t be as possible with a storm that is still a reasonable distance from our coast…(it is a lot more common with storms that form up a few hundred miles out to sea)…but the California Buoy #46059 tore loose from its moorings sometime last year and it hasn’t been put back into service…so there is a nice big hole in our coverage. Check out this handy little image I put together and you can sort of see what I mean.



Also the more westerly swell direction means that the swell is hitting more of the coast at the same time, which again limits the usual “early warning” signs that you can see as a more NW’erly swell moves down the coast starting up in NorCal, through Central Cal, and down to Socal. Basically it means that you can have a swell slip in past the buoys and bam it starts hitting all of California’s spots within a few hours of each other…or if you are REALLY unlucky the storm won’t produce the swell you thought it would and you can’t tell that there are no waves on the way until it fails to arrive. Yeah I love those.

Anyway…the new W-WNW swell (275-300) is actually starting to show on our nearshore indicator buoys (like the Harvest Buoy and San Nicolas Island) and it will continue to fill in overnight and throughout the day on Friday.



All of the exposed spots will be seeing some new waves in the morning…average spots will be in the waist-chest high+ range with some shoulder high sets. Better WNW facing breaks, like those in San Diego, Ventura, and the South Bay, will be in the chest-head high range. The standout WNW-NW spots, mostly in Ventura through the morning, will be running in the shoulder-overhead range on the sets. As the swell fills in look for all of the W-NW facing breaks to increase in size and consistency…with the best breaks seeing sets going a couple of feet overhead by the end of the day.

Winds look good…light and variable to light/moderate offshore near the wind-prone passes and canyons. Winds stay light but turn slightly onshore through the mid-afternoon. Looks like they may lay down later in evening as well, but don’t count on it being bump free.



I think it will be worth getting out and surfing tomorrow morning…it won’t be huge or anything right off the bat…but the swell is filling in which means that it will just get bigger and more consistent. Points and Reefs will have the best shape…the beach breaks are going to be a bit walled as the swell fills in…expect some current to paddle against at the wide open spots as well.

There is a bit of a difference in how the swell will be hitting each of our Counties tomorrow. The Regional Forecasts have some of those details so give ‘em a check when you get a chance.

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… send me some reports if you get a chance (pics are always welcome too).

01/08/2010 Friday
03:29AM LST 5.1 H
11:05AM LST 0.7 L
05:05PM LST 2.8 H
09:39PM LST 2.0 L

Swell Update – WNW’er starting to show out there

The new WNW swell is starting to come in with some really long-period energy this afternoon...nearly 22-24 seconds...and a decent swell size, depending on where you are, already showing about 2-5-feet of deepwater energy with the larger sizes closer to Point Conception.

Check out the Harvest Buoy (which will always show the swell bigger and earlier thanks to its position).



And here are a couple of surf-camera screenshots that I grabbed before sundown…





Looks like some fun on tap for tomorrow (and Thursday.)

Waves for Wednesday – big WNW swell builds throughout the day

Wednesday will be a surf day…a really good surf day (if you don’t mind the questionable water quality).

The WNW swell (280-300) will be on the rise throughout the day on Wednesday and will mix with some lumpy local windswell and a trace of SW swell that will basically evaporate in the bigger WNW-NW swell.

Due to the nature of the WNW swell angle and the timing of the storm, we can expect a pretty significant increase in swell for Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties early on Wednesday…but the swell won’t be peaking for those areas until late in the day…likely after dark.

Eventually the swell will push into to all the exposed NW breaks…we can even expect a few waves showing early but not a really big jump in wave heights until later in the afternoon. Check out how the CDIP wave model shows the swell filling in on Wednesday…

Here it is at 3am



and 9am



By 3pm it continues to fill in




Winds look ok for Wednesday…sort of light/variable for the morning with some leftover texture and onshore flow for a few areas. The forecast is calling for a touch more wind than I think it should…mostly because it is freezing ass cold and that has a tendency to throw together a land-breeze as the ground temps drop lower than the ocean…I think we will have fairly clean conditions early but enough instability that variable onshore bump returns around midday and possibly strengthens into the afternoon.



So as this swell builds I expect the best shape to be at the points/reefs…this sort of size will just close out the directly exposed beach breaks...there may be a window in the morning for the southerly counties where the size hasn’t jumped too much and the beach breaks will be more makeable, just expect it to shift around by the end of the day. Water quality won’t be the best…really with the amount of rain it will be pretty nasty at the spots affected by runoff…so as usual we end up having to weigh the risks of catching some nasty against the quality of the surf. Personally I am going to hunt around some of the more protected areas close to home…but if I had a real point/reef sort of close that would be my first check. If your region really sucks on these swells for some reason, and you love big waves, this would be a good swell to drive a little further for…but I might save it for Thursday as the swell peaks everywhere, not just further north.

Here are the tides…good luck, stay safe, and send me some pictures if you get a chance.

12/09/2009 Wednesday
03:31AM LST 4.8 H
10:01AM LST 1.7 L
03:20PM LST 3.6 H
09:34PM LST 1.0 L

Surf for Tuesday – Building WNW swell and an incoming storm

Tuesday is not looking like much of a surf day…but there might be a couple of pockets here and there.

We are going to have a mix of new WNW energy (290-300 but with a lot of the energy around 295-300), a bit of background SW energy (200-220), and some building S windswell. Stormy conditions start moving in through the day and it looks like the rain could be heavy by the afternoon.



Surfwise the average spots, the ones that can pull in just some of the WNW and SW energy, will be in the knee-waist high range…maybe a few chest high sets coming through if the S windswell chop picks up. Top NW facing spots, mostly through San Diego and Southern Ventura, will see some chest-shoulder high sets off the new NW energy…but again will likely have choppy/sloppy shape as the S winds build in.

Weather/winds are not looking good tomorrow. LA through San Diego it looks like S-SW winds around 10 knots for the morning, which means that there are a few protected areas, like the South Bay, Central OC, or parts of Central SD, that get some blockage from the winds. I don’t expect those areas to be great…but if the winds stay more Southerly or even SW’erly they will be a lot cleaner than the other more exposed spots.

Santa Barbara and Ventura are going to see slightly different winds…forecasts are calling for the leading edge of the front to move over the area, and for strong SE winds to blow through the region. Generally those sort of winds aren’t that great for most of the Santa Barbara point breaks but there are some little nuggets of spots, in both Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties that might be clean enough (and see some new NW swell) to stay surfable.





As always these fronts are a total pain from a forecast perspective…the unstable nature of the storm means that conditions can change very rapidly…and so a lot depends on how the storm actually interacts with our area. As a surfer it pays to keep a close eye on things, particularly if we are starting to get new swell, which in this case we are. Personally even though the forecasts are calling for funky morning winds doesn’t mean that I trust them 100%...I will probably get up and at least give the cams a morning run-through, and who knows we might get lucky and the winds will hold off for a while. On the other hand…if it is already raining…I don’t think I will be too stoked on the water quality even if the winds are good.

Here are tides…

12:14AM LDT 0.0 L
06:49AM LDT 4.5 H
12:26PM LDT 2.0 L
06:06PM LDT 5.1 H