Surf for Friday – Sometimes I hate you wind

Friday should be a surf day...but a weird cold front is forecast to move through the area tonight and may tweak the morning winds.

Swellwise we are going to be doing alright...we have a mix of building S-SW swell (180-200), some NW windswell, and increasing (but still small) S-SW tropical energy from TS Enrique. Nothing huge overall but with enough shift in swell direction, compared to the primarily 215-200 we had earlier this week, to make the surf seem both bigger and more consistent.



On Friday the average surf spots will see a little increase...slowly at first...but building throughout the day. Look for mostly knee-waist high+ surf with some chest high sets at the average spots. The better exposed S-SW facing breaks will be more consistently in the waist-chest high range while the standout S-SW facing spots and good combo breaks, mostly through Orange County and parts of San Diego, will have some inconsistent (at first) shoulder high sets. Look for more consistency throughout the afternoon.

Winds are where it gets funky again. I mentioned that we have a cold front (a dry cold front) moving through the region tonight that has some WNW-W winds that will follow the trough. Like the winter, the models can only give a rough estimate of when the front will actually pass through the area and the high-pressure starts to ridge in as it clears. If it moves through fast we could have cleaner winds in the morning. If it stalls out we could be looking at steady W winds around 10-12 knots, which would suck. At this point it is sort of 50/50 for the dawn patrol. The afternoon looks breezy no matter what thanks to higher inland temps spinning up the usual summer sea-breezes. Check out the front on the NWS Charts...



And now look at the COAMPS...it thinks that a mild eddy may form tomorrow.



Your best bet, because of the winds, is to give the computer (or the flags outside if you live semi-close to the coast) a good going-over in the morning. You won’t want to waste a lot of gas checking spots if you see that the wind is still up...but if conditions look calm then it might be worth further investigation.

Here are the tides...watch out for the negative low in the morning.

04:54AM LDT -0.1 L
11:05AM LDT 4.3 H
04:33PM LDT 1.7 L
10:25PM LDT 5.3 H