Monday’s waves – get warmed up for the W swell

Monday looks fun, not great or big, just sort of playful. Water quality will still be an issue…I think you will want to avoid the rivers and storm-drains if you want to stay healthy but it will be cleaner than the weekend. (You can always check out www.healthebay.org for the water quality report card).

Surfwise we will have a mix of new W-WNW swell moving in…this one is sort of a combo of energy from that swell that hit Hawaii over the weekend and the initial formation of the system that will crank out the bigger W-WNW swell in a couple of days. What does that really mean from a surf standpoint? Well that I am a weather-nerd of the first degree…oh and that we will get a slight increase in wave heights at the winter spots throughout the day.

Waves will start off on the small side…mostly waist-chest high for most areas, with some slightly bigger sets in San Diego and Ventura. By the afternoon average spots will be closer to shoulder high while the standouts in Ventura see some inconsistent head high sets mixing in.

Weather looks ok…winds will be light in the morning but expect increasing NW winds 10-15+ knots by the end of the day.

Big WNW swell update: Things are still looking good for the swell on Tuesday and Wednesday. I think we should get a pretty big jump in swell on Tuesday but the meat of the swell will still really arrive overnight and into Wednesday. That being said…winds are looking decent on Tuesday and with that swell starting to fill in as we move throughout the day…I am seriously considering heading northward and trying to pick off a few waves as it arrives.

Here is a random WAM (Nave WWIII wave heights) picture showing the significant wave heights in the North Pacific.