Tropical Update – Tropical Storm Ignacio

Tropical Depression 12e strengthened into Tropical Storm Ignacio this evening.



TS Ignacio is currently located about 650 miles SW of the tip of Baja and is in the S-SSE swell window for Southern California. Right now Ignacio isn’t a huge storm…core wind speeds are holding around 40-knots with some 50-knot gusts...and the good parts of fetch, the ones that are aiming towards SoCal are about 50-60 miles across.

Still he is going to be intensifying, at least according to forecasts, and could become a fairly intense tropical storm…he is not expected to reach hurricane strength at this time. You can see the convection (the cloud rotation) around the low in this satellite photo…



The more convection we see, and the more Ignacio looks like a hurricane, the better it is for swell production.

Another good factor…is his storm track…current forecasts have him moving WNW (290-degrees) at about 10-knots. This WNW path is actually supposed to steepen as he intensifies, which means that the stronger parts of the storm will be better aligned toward SoCal and could potentially be better for setting up swell.

From a surf standpoint I think that we will get some waves from Ignacio…nothing huge…but enough to ride. It looks like the first S swell (180) will arrive from Ignacio on Thursday. Since there will still be plenty of Southern Hemi swell in the water I don’t know that we are going to really be able to tell that the tropical swell is showing. Based on today’s forecast it looks like any energy from Ignacio would peak as we head into Saturday, hopefully the tropical energy will help prop up wave heights from our fading Southern Hemi…and keep us in consistent, but playful sized (chest-shoulder high) surf through the upcoming weekend.

Tuesday’s Surf – A little surf window opening up

Over the weekend it looked like Tuesday was going to be pretty sloppy but as I looked at the charts this afternoon it looks like Tuesday might be a surf day.

There will still be some rain, maybe even some slight texture from light winds but overall it isn’t looking totally sloppy.

Right now we have this funky little low hanging just off the California coast. It even has some decent winds in the core of the storm and it is relatively close to SoCal…in fact it is right in the middle of our W swell window. Check out the satellite shot of this little spinner.



Swell from this storm should actually start filling in tomorrow (along with the weather)…it won’t be huge but it will definitely be bigger than what we saw on Monday. There will also be some new S swell (180-190) starting to fill in that might be able to cross up a few of the combo breaks.
For tomorrow I am looking for most of the average spots with some exposure to one or both of those swells to be holding around waist high…maybe waist high+ (with some bigger sets) on the lower tides.

The standout W facing breaks, mostly in Ventura and San Diego, as well as some of the really good combo breaks, will have some waist-chest high sets through the first part of the day but should start to see some shoulder high waves for the afternoon.

Winds for tomorrow morning look light…mostly light/variable with a semi-consistent onshore bent to it. Winds go more onshore in the afternoon but generally remain below 10-knots. Looks like the rain moves in by the afternoon for most areas. Here is the COAMPS wind forecast for Tuesday morning.



Now that I am seeing this storm holding off the coast I am a little more interested in surfing tomorrow. I am not totally committed yet…there are still a few things that bother me about tomorrow…

#1 is the morning tide – the high morning tides seriously need to fuck off.

#2 the approaching cold front – weather models almost never get these right, particularly when the storm is smaller and located around the mid-latitudes (the GFS has a weakness in the mid’s for some reason…usually undervalues wind speed projections).

#3 Rain – while it keeps the crowd down at the beach it delivers a lot of poo into the lineup…I am not sure I want to surf through another poo-slick.

Basically I am planning on keeping an eye on it through the morning…waiting for the tide to drop and crossing my fingers that it drains out, the swell comes up, and the winds stay down long enough to get a little session in. I would suggest taking it easy through the morning and getting in a camera check before driving down to the beach. Also try and stick with spots that have good exposure to the swell mix...either a really good WNW spot, good S facing spot, or good combo break.

Here are the tides…

12:42AM LST 1.9’ L
06:55AM LST 5.9’ H
02:13PM LST -0.3’ L
08:27PM LST 3.6’ H