Waves for the weekend – Combo swell continues

Saturday and Sunday will be surf days…but conditions may be a touch on the blah side as the coastal eddy develops and strengthens over the weekend.

We are going to have a playful mix of S-SW swell (180-220) that is pulsing in from a couple of different sources. We are also going to have some building WNW-NW windswell that will begin strengthening tonight (as winds in the outer waters build) but will peak Saturday, hold through Sunday, and then back down slightly for Monday. Overall it is going to look sort of like the CDIP from this morning but with more size.



Wave heights are going to hold around waist high for the average spots…maybe some chest high sets on the lower tides. The better combo spots, and the top S facing breaks, will have chest-shoulder high surf as well as some rare bigger waves on the lower tides. Looks like the WNW energy will peak on Saturday so the combo spots should be best then…and then the S-SW swell mix strengthens more on Father’s Day so the S facing spots should start to work a bit better and get a little more consistent.

Winds will be a touch funky at times as the eddy spins up. Right now it looks like the center of the eddy will hold just north of Catalina which means that Santa Barbara/Ventura will have some light NW flow, OC and SD will get light S-SW winds, and LA (particularly the South Bay) will have light SE winds. This looks to be the case on both Saturday and Sunday…but the eddy looks the strongest on Saturday.

Wavewise I am expecting the biggest surf through Orange County and San Diego this weekend…I don’t think it will be worth driving super far to get waves…mostly because there will be something to ride almost throughout SoCal. I still think that the points and reefs will have the best shape, particularly if they can handle the higher tides. Beach breaks will be fun too, but it looks like the bigger S swell may have carved out the sandbars in a few areas. I would probably plan on bringing gear that still lets you get waves in sort of inconsistent/swampy shape.

Here are the tides…have a great Father’s Day!

Saturday
02:30AM LDT -0.7 L
08:53AM LDT 3.4 H
01:18PM LDT 2.1 L
07:38PM LDT 6.4 H

Sunday
03:15AM LDT -1.2 L
09:41AM LDT 3.6 H
02:09PM LDT 2.1 L
08:24PM LDT 6.7 H

Surf for Monday – Home of the spicy chicken-jack swell combo thingee

Monday will have a few surfable waves. Again it won’t be anything super special but if you get a bit lucky with both the tides and the winds then you could have a fun little session.

Surfwise we are looking a mix of slowly fading S swell, some inconsistent background SW energy, and some local windswell (that has been doing the workhorse workload most of the weekend).

Most spots will continue to see surf in the knee-waist high range while the standouts, mostly in Orange County and parts of San Diego see chest-shoulder high sets.

Winds are still a bit iffy…just watching/feeling the wind this evening you can tell that it isn’t really ready to settle down. I expect that we will have mostly clean conditions in the morning with light/variable winds but a few of the more open beaches will have some light onshore texture. Expect onshore winds to build in around mid-morning and then continue to strengthen up to 10-15 knots by the afternoon.

Tide will sort of slop it up in the morning as well…there is a 3.7’ high that hits about 9:30am…so expect the dawn patrol to be on the boggy side.
Naturally we will be back into the frustrating race of the tide getting low enough, fast enough, in order to get the surf in better shape before the winds pick up and start to tear it up.

I think that your best bet is just going to be hitting up the local combo break…if you are close enough to North OC or North SD then it might be worth a check…but don’t waste your gas driving all over. Bring a board that can handle some semi-mushy shape…that way you might be able to pick off a few more clean ones while you are waiting for the tide to drop.