Surf for Tuesday – a few waves and some more out the back

Tuesday morning is still looking like a surf day…but an approaching low-pressure looks like it might start the weather to go a bit wonky by the afternoon.

In the water we are going to see a mix of much smaller but still playful S-SSE swell (170-180), some local windswell, and a WNW/SW combo that holds in the background.
Sizewise we can expect most spots to be fairly consistently in the waist-chest high range. The better breaks will be more chest-high+, and the top spots, mostly in SD and OC, will have some chest-shoulder high+ sets.

Shape looks good in the morning with light/variable winds for most areas and maybe some light S flow for a few of the unlucky beaches. Increasing S-SW winds 10-15 knots are forecast for the afternoon. The weather is supposed to cool off, get a bit cloudy, and even drizzle by the late evening. It won’t be much but you probably shouldn’t wash your car.

I would try and get on it early in the morning, just so you can get the better winds, and hopefully a few waves before the high tide peaks to fully. Combo breaks are going to be the best call, beach breaks should be fun but there still may be a little current if it is exposed to the S-SW swell mix. The points/reefs will be fun as well but may be a little broken up at times.

Long-range is starting too look pretty interesting…there is a pretty decent looking storm due south of us right now that is putting some 40-50 knot winds up on the QuikSCAT analysis. Check it out…



With these stronger winds, and fetch that is moving almost directly towards us, it looks like we should get a pretty fun swell around the beginning of next week. We should actually start to see some long-period energy showing on the buoys on the 12th…but the main push of swell should hit on the 13-14th. At this point it looks good for easy shoulder-head high surf for the S facing spots. The standouts, mostly through Orange County, should have some consistent overhead sets. There is also a chance a bit of a WNW swell to be arriving around the same time, it won’t be much but hopefully we can see it break up the S swell. Anyway…more details on this one as we get closer.

Here are the tides.

02:31AM LDT 0.3 L
08:23AM LDT 4.8 H
02:39PM LDT -0.1 L
08:46PM LDT 5.3 H