Thursday’s Surf – A little more SW’er

Thursday is looking surfable…and with a little more SW swell in the water there will be a little less waiting between sets.

Swellwise we are going to see a mix of leftover S-SW swell (180-205) from earlier in the week and a new SW swell (200-220) that starts to slowly fill in later in the day. Local windswell creeps up in the afternoon but winds in the outer waters have been on the mild side lately (the eddy death ray is working!) so there isn’t a lot of energy out of the WNW-NW.



Average S-SW facing spots will be mostly in the knee-waist high range on Thursday…with some waiting time between the bigger sets (stupid SPAC islands always getting in the way). The better exposed spots, the SW facing regions that don’t have to deal with our nearshore island blockage, will be more consistent in the waist-chest high range…and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a chest-shoulder high set sneak through on the lower tides.

Winds look good…mostly light and variable in the morning with some spots of slight onshore texture at the really exposed beaches. Look for winds to shift to the W around 5-10 knots by lunchtime and then eventually top out around 15 knots for the afternoon.



With the surf being on the small side (and a bit inconsistent) I still think your small-wave boards are your best bet…you might be able to get away with some fishy at the top breaks, but if the tide gets too high and the sets bog out…you might be stuck groveling. I think the morning, the earlier the better, will be the best call…but for those of us that can’t roll out of bed at the crack of dawn it should still be surfable till the winds start to pick up too much.

Here are the tides…

08/05/2010 Thursday
01:00AM LDT 0.5 L
07:52AM LDT 3.1 H
11:15AM LDT 2.8 L
05:50PM LDT 5.5 H

Waves for the Weekend - Some surf with a cruel tide

Saturday and Sunday will both be surf days. The tide is going to suck at times but if you be a bit flexible there will be some fun surf windows. Watch out for the Swamp Thing!



It won't be huge either day but there will be a fairly consistent mix of overlapping WNW energy (280-300) that starts arriving on Saturday and peaks into Sunday (holding into Monday). At the same time we will have some smaller S-SW swells (190-210) that will continue to push in through the background.

Saturday we can expect most exposed spots to hold in the waist-chest high range with some chest high+ sets on the lower tides. The standout spots will be in the chest-shoulder high range with a few bigger waves coming through at the top spots in San Diego.

Sunday the new WNW'er will fill in a bit more. Most exposed WNW spots will move into the chest-shoulder high range...again you will have to work around the tides. The standouts spots will be in the chest-head high range while the top winter spots will have some head high+ sets.

Check out Friday's CDIP...expect this with a little "more" WNW over the weekend.

Weather is looking good through the weekend...even warm once the sun is up. Winds will be light to moderately offshore through the morning and will be light/variable to light offshore for the afternoons. A few areas, particularly around Ventura, North LA, North SD, and Baja Norte (areas with high passes and canyons) will have moderate to strong offshore flow at times.

Here are the tides for Saturday and Sunday

Sat
03:10AM LST 2.3' Sort of Normal
09:25AM LST 6.7' Swamp Thing
05:06PM LST -1.2' Where did the water go
11:46PM LST 3.6' Survivable

Sun
04:00AM LST 2.5' Sort of Normal
10:16AM LST 6.3' Swamp Thing
06:05PM LST -0.9' Ankle Snapper

Have a great one!