Thursday’s Surf – A little bit more swell, but watch the tides

Thursday will be rideable but it will sort of be on the "bubble" of being a surf day.

We are going to have a mix of peaking/holding S swell (170-180), some SW energy (200-220), and some local NW windswell. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of SW swell in the water…and the S swell, by nature, is a bit more selective on what spots it hits…which is leaving a few gaps in surf out there. Check out the CDIP from this afternoon and you can see what I mean…



….those Dark Blue areas are not good.

On Thursday the S swell will come up a couple of notches and the SW’er will build as well. Most of the average exposed areas will be in the waist-chest high range. Standout S facing areas, mostly through Orange County and a few spots in North LA, will be in the chest-shoulder+ high range on the sets. It will still be a little inconsistent (and the morning negative low tide won’t help us out) so expect some wait between the bigger sets.

Winds look ok for most of SoCal but OC and SD will continue to see some pockets of eddy texture. It won’t be super blown out or anything but there will be some southerly crumble on a few of the more exposed spots. Mostly we can expect variable to slight southerly winds for the morning and some NW winds around 10-15 knots for the afternoon. Cleanest conditions will be through LA, particularly Santa Monica down through the South Bay.

I am not expecting a ton of fun out of the surf tomorrow. It will be rideable in the areas with exposure to the swell mix…but the best exposed spots, like those in OC, will have some onshore crumble and extreme low tides that will hamper surf shape. On the plus side…these conditions are notoriously fluky…so I would keep an eye on things through midmorning, we might see things improve as the tide starts to fill in.

Here are the tides…

06:15AM LDT -1.3 L
12:45PM LDT 4.1 H
05:49PM LDT 1.9 L
11:43PM LDT 6.0 H