Thursday’s Surf – Dropping WNW-NW swell and increasing NW winds

At first glance Thursday doesn’t look like much of a surf day…but after looking at it a little closer there may be a few little surf windows that open up in the morning.

The WNW-NW swell (285-300 but with the peak of the energy coming in at 290-300) will be fading on Thursday as it mixes with some building NW windswell and some new background SW swell (200-220). There will still be plenty of swell in the water but overall it will feel smaller and less consistent compared to Wednesday.



Average WNW facing spots will be in the chest-head high range with some inconsistent overhead sets showing on the lower tides. The standout NW facing breaks, mostly in Ventura, the South Bay, and South San Diego, will be in the shoulder-overhead range with sets going a couple of feet overhead in the morning…but becoming a little less consistent and smaller throughout the afternoon.

Winds don’t look great on Thursday…neither does the weather when you get right down to it…but really who cares about a little rain/drizzle at this point. It looks like NW flow will start up pretty early on Thursday (if it ever backs down from Wednesday night)…the strongest winds, NW winds around 10-15 knots, will be up around Santa Barbara, Ventura, and down through parts of South San Diego. LA and OC will have similar NW winds but speeds look a bit lighter…mostly below 10-knots for the morning along with a couple of semi-clean looking pockets showing through North LA and North OC. NW winds 15-20+ knots will be on tap through the afternoon.



Once again we can’t quite get all of the pieces to come together…we have decent tides, plenty of swell, but the wind/weather is going to funk things up. I wouldn’t spend a ton of time looking for waves tomorrow but if you have a spot with some NW wind protection close by it might be worth giving it a check in the morning. Points/reefs will continue to have the best shape…but there may be a little more NW/SW combo as the WNW-NW’er backs off and the new SW’er fills in a touch more.

Make sure to check out the regional forecasts for the details for each county.

Regional/County Forecasts

Santa Barbara Surf Forecast
Ventura County Surf Forecast
Los Angeles County Surf Forecast
Orange County Surf Forecast
San Diego Surf Forecast

Here are the tides…

03/04/2010 Thursday
05:52AM LST 0.1 L
11:46AM LST 3.6 H
05:16PM LST 1.2 L
11:40PM LST 5.1 H