Waves for Wednesday – Cleaning up…but expect some lingering bump

Wednesday looks rideable…but we need our local winds to get their poop together in order for conditions to improve. I definitely think there will be some pockets of surfy-ness tomorrow…but “where” and “for how long” will depend a lot on how winds behave tonight.

NW windswell has been building through the outer waters all day today…unfortunately most of the energy is coming in at a very steep swell-angle, above 300-degrees, which means SoCal is seeing a lot of shadowing from Point Conception (and the Channel islands). It also doesn’t help that the swell’s periods are so short, around 6-10 seconds. At those periods the energy doesn’t really wrap…so if you aren’t directly exposed to the swell direction it will basically march right on past your spot. Check out the buoys from this afternoon (yes you are reading it right…the Harvest Buoy is holding around 17-feet…unfortunately most of its energy is getting blocked.



Here is the forecast for tomorrow morning…



As you can see on the CDIP forecast above…the majority of the energy is heading towards San Diego, with a couple of tendrils sneaking into Ventura, the South Bay, and some smaller leakage around OC/North SD.

Wave heights for tomorrow are going to be in the waist-chest high range at the “average” NW windswell spots. The better NW facing spots will be in the chest-shoulder high range with some bigger sets mixing in. The top San Diego windswell spots, mostly from La Jolla southward, will be running consistently in the shoulder-head high range with some overhead+ sets showing through the morning and then becoming less consistent by the afternoon.

Winds are really what is going to make or break the surf tomorrow. The forecast is calling for winds to start shifting from the NW to N/NNE as we move through the day tomorrow…but it is a little unclear how soon that shift will start. At this point, considering that the air-temps are dropping fast (and will just get colder tonight), I think that the shift is going to happened sooner rather than later…and that we might even see N-NNE winds for the dawn patrol tomorrow morning. The COAMPS model is sort of saying the same thing…



It still has a lot of N-NNW winds in the outer waters…but the coastal flow is getting routed through the passes and canyons and has more of a northerly tint to it. Here I zoomed in on the COAMPS winds for each region…

Santa Barbara and Ventura



Los Angeles



Orange County



San Diego



Based on this forecast it looks like the cleanest conditions will set up around North LA and Orange County…but with some side offshore winds in Ventura, the South Bay, and Southern San Diego. Hopefully we will see more of a general offshore than this model is calling for…I am not holding my breath for that though.

For the morning…I think that you are going to want to check the various live wind stations and surf cams before driving very far to check the surf, if the wind doesn’t switch fast enough it may still be pretty ugly. If you live close to the beach, particularly near a good windswell spot, I would plan on at least giving it a drive-by if the winds don’t seem too bad.

Conditions will definitely improve more on Thursday but the windswell will be dropping off fast…lets cross our fingers that we can get a fast cleanup on tomorrow and take advantage of the swell.

Here are the tides…let me know if you find a few fun ones tomorrow.

12:22AM LDT 0.9 L
06:54AM LDT 4.5 H
12:59PM LDT 2.0 L
06:28PM LDT 4.1 H

Surf For Thursday – Cleaner but still a chance for some bump

Thursday will be a lot cleaner than Wednesday but I still don’t think it is going to be a good surf day.

Local winds are forecast to back down tonight...with super cold air-temps settling over some areas (the NWS is calling for frost and freezing temps in some of the inland valleys). As usual the colder nighttime temps have a tendency to switch around the wind...or at least knock it down a bit...and we can expect lighter winds for the morning. I don’t think it will be 100% clean...there is still a chance at some light onshore flow and leftover lump but it shouldn’t be totally blown out either. Hopefully we will get lucky and the cold air will switch the winds to the N a bit more.

You can watch the winds go by on the Satellite



It is a little hard to see on the photo so here is the animation - http://sat.wrh.noaa.gov/satellite/satloop.php?wfo=lox&type=vis&size=1

Swellwise we are going to see a mix of good sized but fading W-WNW windswell lumping over fading S swell (180-190) and some background WNW/SW pulses. Most spots will see surf in the chest-shoulder high range for tomorrow morning...the top W facing spots, that really like the windswell, will have some shoulder-head high faces...it wouldn’t surprise me to see some head high+ sets through Southern San Diego.

Like I said...the winds don’t look great tomorrow. It will be cleanest around the dawn patrol, with light/variable to like W-NW flow. Generally it will stay below 10-knots for the AM...but by the afternoon it turns onshore and builds into the 10-15+ knot range at the more exposed areas.

Personally I still wouldn’t commit a lot of time to the surf tomorrow...there will be waves but the leftover lump will probably keep most spots fairly fugly. The water temps are going to nose-dive too thanks to upwelling...I would probably plan on bringing some booties if you aren’t down with the cold. I am probably going to be doing a cam-check from my toasty computer in the morning...just on the chance that winds switch around enough to make it worth it...but overall I am not expecting a lot.

Here are the tides...

01:17AM LDT 4.0 H
10:12AM LDT 0.6 L
06:45PM LDT 3.1 H
09:06PM LDT 3.0 L