Long-Range Outlook – Because talking about small waves really sucks

I have been looking over the long-range charts and I have some good news and some bad news.

First the Bad News...this run of small surf (that is hitting right now) is going to continue for the next few days. I know it hasn’t been completely flat...but it certainly hasn’t been all that fun. We can expect small ankle-knee high+ waves at the average spots to continue through at least Saturday (May 30th)...and probably Sunday as well.

The Good News is that the South Pacific has started to pick up some steam again. The high-pressure that had been putting the hurt on the SPAC storm track has finally started to break down and move out towards Chile. The high actually started to erode several days ago but it took a little while to get some favorable fetch to develop in our swell window.

As of this afternoon we have a few new, but somewhat small, pulses of S-SW swell heading our way. Check it out...



The first swell is a mini-S swell (180-190) that will be arriving slowly through the day on May 31st...but shows a little better by June 1st. This little guy looks good for more consistent knee-waist high surf at the average spots and maybe a few waist high+ sets at the top spots. Nothing to get excited about but better than completely flat surf.

That first pulse will be followed by a slightly bigger SW’er (200-220) that comes in on June 2nd and holds through the 3rd. This one is a little bigger...but it has a more westerly angle...which means that North LA, South OC, and San Diego will be a little more exposed (while North OC is more shadowed). The average spots will be more consistently around waist high with this one while the standout SW facing spots, particularly the combo breaks that get a little windswell, will be waist-chest high with a couple of rare plus sets.



The third swell is another SW’er (195-215) that is bigger than the previous swells...and looks like it should be fun at the exposed spots. The current satellites are showing some decent wind speeds (40-45+ knots) in the key areas of fetch...and you can see that the WavewatchIII model is predicting some longer swell-periods. This swell will arrive slowly on June 4th and likely peak on the 5-6th before fading. At this point the swell looks good for chest high surf at most of the exposed areas with some shoulder high+ sets at the standouts.



Further out...there is even more storm activity forecasted to push through that same part of the swell window over by New Zealand...and while it still has a few days to form it has been a pretty consistent feature on the forecast charts which is nice. If this storm can live up to forecasts we should see another pulse of SW swell (210-220) hitting our area around the 12-13th.

Just to be clear...none of these swells are particularly noteworthy...I wouldn’t get to fired up over any of the ones that are already in the water heading our way. I was getting sick of telling you how flat it is going to be over the next few days...hopefully this gives us a little to look forward to.

Why our surf sucks right now

Not that this will change anything or help us get waves anytime soon…but I thought I would put together a post highlighting how lame out North Pacific storm track looks right now.

Just from the lack of waves and the crazy conditions we all can tell that mother nature is giving us a pretty good working over. Usually though these sort of forecast scenarios cycle through pretty quickly…you sort of get a cold-front, followed by some NW winds that build in the vacuum behind the low-pressure, and then conditions clear up as high-pressure rebuilds after the low moves out…and usually there are some waves mixed in at some point.

Right now the storm track is all over the place…we are getting all the funky weather without any of the waves…and the gap between cold fronts has been very short, without much time for high-pressure to help dry us out.

The root problem of our current lackosurf condition lies in the positioning and strength of the Eastern North Pacific High-Pressure…which is a semi-permanent ridge of high-pressure that can be found shifting around between Hawaii, The Gulf of Alaska, and the US West Coast.

It seems weird that the high-pressure would be the one causing the issues when we generally look at storms (or low-pressure) when it comes to swell creation (well it is really the interaction between the high and the low that causes surf…but you usually don’t go “man look at that high-pressure!”…it is usually “wow that storm is going to wipe Hawaii off the map” or something to that effect).

Anyway the EPAC High-pressure is the main cause for the North Pacific storm track to shut down for the summer. During the summer months it sits almost stationary on the edge of the Gulf of Alaska and forces any of the weak systems moving over the Aleutians back up into Alaska and Canada.

During the winter this high is usually compacted back into the mid/low latitudes by the more intense storms…and will spend much of the winter ridging over Southern California and on over to Hawaii.

Now check this out…this is the current Sea Level Pressure chart generated by the GFS weather model…



The EPAC high-pressure has more of its summer shape…worse yet it has a strong buddy blocking a lot of the higher latitude storm action over in the NW Pacific. The ridge is effectively blocking most our of swell window and is forcing what little storm activity we do have up into the Gulf of Alaska.

Weatherwise having the high positioned further out to sea is opening a gap along the west coast that is allowing the cold fronts to slip down from the north and douche us with rain. So basically we get all of the weather but none of the waves that should go with it, which in my book is super-lame.

The next few days of the forecast run don’t look any better. This is Saturday morning…the high is trying to reestablish itself in a more normal position but it is not strong enough to stand up to another incoming cold front.



By Monday we get more bad weather…and the high-pressures continue to screw up our swell window. (A 1040-mb high-pressure is pretty damn strong).



There is one ray of hope way out of the forecast charts…so far in fact that we shouldn’t expect much out of it yet…but it is worth keeping an eye on.



The 168-hour forecast chart (the odds equivalent of doubling down on back to back 14’s in blackjack)…does have a nice storm brewing up in the Gulf on Christmas Eve…who knows we might get a nice present from Santa after all this crappy/small surf.

In the meantime…the local mountains just got about 3 feet of snow, and there is more on the way…at least it is still boardriding

Random Long Range Forecast: Light at the end of the tunnel

The surf has been sucking the last couple of days but it does look like things are going to improve rather quickly as we move into the upcoming weekend.

The North Pacific Storm track has gotten a bit more active over the last week and it looks like it is just going to get more intense as we head toward the weekend and next week.

Right now we have a couple of low-pressures to the N and NE of Hawaii that are going to be sending us some new, playful sized, WNW swell for the weekend and into next Monday. Check out the QUIKscat



The first WNW swell (280-300) arrives later on Friday, showing mostly in Santa Barbara and Ventura late in the afternoon and arriving more after dark. Look for this swell to peak on Saturday and Sunday with surf in the waist-chest high+ range for many areas and some shoulder-head high sets at the standout breaks in Ventura and San Diego. There will also be a touch of increasing SW swell in the water so hopefully we can have some combo fun at the exposed breaks over the weekend.

Further out the models are showing a pretty decent sized low and cold front developing just off the California Coast. It is a waaaays out on the charts at this point so I am not totally sold on how it will pull together. Based on Today's charts we could see a mix of shoulder-head high+ W-WNW swell arriving on Wednesday the 26th and peaking into Thursday/Friday over the thanksgiving holiday. Like I said it is still a ways from forming but it is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Check back I will have more updates as we get closer.

Yeah for waves!