Waves for the Weekend – More SW swell and some wind (onshore, offshore, sideshore…take your pick)

At this point it looks like Saturday and Sunday will both be surf days…but the wind is being a bit squirrelly so we might be playing it a little by ear day to day.

On Saturday we will see a mix of fading S swell (175-190), building SW swell (190-210) and more local NW windswell .



Wave heights will be in the waist-chest high range at the average breaks, while the standouts…mostly in Orange County and parts of San Diego (but at a few other spots as well)…see some chest-shoulder high surf with some occasional head high sets. This is probably a little conservative sizewise for the really exposed standout breaks that can focus these Southern Hemi swells…so look for some bigger sets lurking around on the better tides.

Winds…hmmm…the current forecasts are calling for Friday’s afternoon NW winds to shift more N-NNE overnight and be blowing offshore for the morning…there isn’t a super strong pressure gradient driving these winds so how much of the “offshore direction” will only be over land, and how much will be over surfable ocean is hard to determine. I am expecting the cleanest spots to be breaks that have some protection from the N-NNW winds...so I would focus on those areas and then if winds go more easterly we will have more room to work with. NW winds 10-15+ knots on tap for the afternoon…with stronger gusts around Ventura/Santa Barbara.



Sunday we will actually start to get another SW swell (200-220) that blends in with the peaking SSW-SW’er (190-210) already in the water…and the WNW-NW windswell will also be increasing a touch.



Sunday won’t see a ton of new size…but with the new swells filling in it looks like things might be more consistent on the bigger sets and the standout spots may see a few larger waves mixing in more by the afternoon. Look for more chest-shoulder high surf at the average exposed spots and some shoulder-head high surf at the better SSW-SW exposed breaks. The standouts will have some head high+ sets by the afternoon.

Winds on Sunday look more onshore…a bit of variable onshore for the morning, mostly below 5-8 knots…enough to put some texture on things but not totally blow it out. It actually looks cleaner for LA up through Southern Ventura…where winds will be even more light/variable. Look for W winds around 10-14 knots to build up through the afternoon.



So there you have it…plenty of SW swell, some windswell, and weird swirly winds that just aren’t funky enough to call off the hunt but aren’t clean enough to keep us focused. I am planning on checking my local beach breaks on Saturday…though I might spend some time checking the computer in the morning before driving too far. Sunday looks a bit too funky for me…hopefully something will click over the weekend and we will see it lock down some better odds on cleaner conditions.

Here are the tides…have a good one!

404/17/2010 Saturday
06:01AM LDT -0.4 L
12:21PM LDT 3.1 H
04:53PM LDT 2.0 L
11:13PM LDT 5.4 H

04/18/2010 Sunday
06:55AM LDT -0.3 L
01:33PM LDT 2.9 H
05:28PM LDT 2.3 L