Random SoCal Surf Report – manageable winds

Looks like the eddy spun up a bit this morning and it is holding off the stronger W winds in the outer waters.



Spots up in Ventura/Santa Barbara are seeing some onshore texture but the more protected spots are not all that tweaked. (the high tide and the shorter-period swell isn’t helping though).

North LA is pretty clean but again the high tide is shutting down a few of the better points. The South Bay is pretty clean too…just a tiny bit of onshore texture so far this morning.

OC is only ok…South OC is better than the North. The North is looking crumbly/funky thanks to the wind turning just a bit too far S-SSW as it swirls through the San Pedro Channel.

San Diego, particularly North/Central San Diego, is looking the cleanest this morning. Winds are light SE-ESE and the ocean surface is pretty smooth. Waves are running in the chest-high+ range even with the tide…and there are a few bigger shoulder-head high sets that are inconsistently popping through. Probably not worth driving (unless you have a lot of time to kill) but if you are in close range it should be worth a look for the next couple of hours. It is going to be a race between the dropping tide and the incoming wind…lets hope the tide wins.

Have a good one...hope you can get a few on the Munday.

Surf on Friday – Looking messy with some possible pockets

So we have swell in the water...and the winds aren’t horrible everywhere right now (as I write this a whole lot of San Diego is surfable, the South Bay is clean, and whole areas protected from the S-SE winds in Ventura are mostly offshore)...it isn’t great surf but it is bigger than earlier this week, so we finally have something to ride.

That W-WNW swell will keep building tonight and peak sometime after midnight.

It looks good for easy chest-shoulder high surf at most W facing breaks. A few of the standout W-NW facing spots, the usual good winter breaks, will have some head high and overhead sets mixing it. I don’t think it is going to come in much bigger than that since the swell periods are already starting to shorten up to around 13-14 seconds. Check out the CDIPer to see how it is hitting this afternoon.



Winds and weather will be the issue again tomorrow. Forecasts are calling for consistent S-SW winds around 10-15 knots for most areas and stronger gusts through the morning. The winds aren’t that strong but they will have a lot of time on the water tonight so I am expecting some decent chop by tomorrow morning and holding through most of the day.

Now if you don’t mind the questionable water quality and you are relatively close to the beach I think you should probably plan on keeping a “weather eye” on conditions. With the storm moving directly over us there is going to be a fair amount of shifting around windwise at times...if things line up for local area, or you have some great protection from the S winds, I think there are going to be some surfable windows tomorrow. It won’t be great surf...but it will be fairly consistent, have some decent size, and be a lot better than the total flatness we just powered through. Personally I am going to keep my gear in the truck just in case things pull together around my neck of the woods.

Here are the tides...

05:52AM LST 6.0 H
01:29PM LST -1.2 L
07:56PM LST 3.6 H