Waves for Wednesday – WNW-NW swell with a side of small Southern Hemi

Wednesday will be a surf day.

We are going to have 2 new swells showing on Wednesday…the first, and most dominant, is the WNW-NW swell (285-300). This swell has the full 285-300 swell-direction spread, but like I have mentioned in previous forecasts, the majority of the energy is coming in from 290-300 degrees, which means that not every “winter” spot will be fully exposed to the swell. The WNW-NW’er will hit select spots in Ventura, the South Bay, and San Diego’s South County the best…while the other WNW facing breaks will be smaller and a little less consistent.

Our second swell is a much smaller, and less consistent S-SW swell (180-210), which will be showing best in Orange County and a few other areas. This swell will be mostly long-period forerunners on Wednesday…and even though the periods is long (18-20 seconds) there isn’t a ton of size in this swell. I don’t even expect this swell to be all that rideable by itself, maybe a few small lines at the purely summer spots, but it should help out the better combo spots breaks. The swell does fill in a bit better by the afternoon and it looks stronger for both Thursday and Friday.



Average WNW facing breaks and the better combo spots will see some waist-shoulder high surf. Standout NW facing breaks and the excellent combo spot (mostly in Ven/So-Bay/South SD areas) will see surf more in the chest-head high range with some inconsistent overhead sets showing on the lower tides.

Winds and weather look pretty nice again on Wednesday. Mostly sunny skies with some light/variable to light offshore winds on tap for the morning. Variable onshore winds around the 10-14 knot range will develop through the afternoon.



So tomorrow will be surf day but you are going to want to be at a spot that can pull in more of the WNW-NW energy…there just isn’t enough S-SW swell to make those S-facing spots work all that well. It looks like the dawn-patrol is going to be the best call, particularly if you can get up super early to take advantage of the early-morning tide push. If you don’t have a great NW spot nearby you will probably want to stick with your small wave gear…it will help you get more out of the swell-mix, and let you stick it out a little longer as the tide fills in.

Here are the tides…Happy St Patrick’s Day! (Hoist a few green ones for me!)

03/17/2010 Wednesday
04:46AM LDT 0.3 L
10:41AM LDT 4.1 H
04:36PM LDT 0.8 L
10:41PM LDT 5.0 H

Tuesday’s Surf – No longer seeing the blue screen of death

Sorry about the late forecast update, and lack of a long-range forecast today, but if you own a PC I am sure that you have all experienced the BSOD…anyway I finally got my interweb up and running and we should be back on schedule. Look for the full Long-range forecast tomorrow.



OK enough about my issues…lets get on to the good stuff.

Tuesday will be a really nice beach day…and there will be some rideable waves, but a general lack of swell and mid-morning high tide will keep it from being a real surf day for most areas.

That being said there are two new swells filling in slowly throughout the day…a WNW-NW swell (285-300 but with a lot of the juice coming in around 292-300, which means a lot of swell shadowing), and a new SSW-SW swell (190-220) that will be quite a bit smaller and inconsistent but it will be slowly strengthening throughout the afternoon.

Really if you only have enough time to surf this week I would start working on your “belly-cramps”, “bad case of the #3’s”, “Dr Appt”…or whatever awesome excuse we as surfers can dream up…so that you can get some waves on Thursday as the combo swell mix peaks (Wednesday and Friday should be decent days too but Thursday looks the best).



Surfwise Tuesday we can expect a pretty slow start…there won’t be much new swell in the water and even though we get a low-tide right before sunrise it comes up pretty fast and will swamp out a lot of places…oh and check out my lame attempt at a “swampthing” t-shirt…it might be in the running for the worst drawing ever, even my wife won't pretend she likes it...click on the picture to see it in the store, better order one now, I bet they are going to be "rare" pretty soon. :)



For the morning…look for most spots to be in the ankle-knee high range with a few waist high+ sets sneaking into the best NW facing breaks in Ventura, the South Bay, and South SD. There may even be a few bigger chest high sets in the SD hot spots.

By the afternoon the swell mix will be increasing…probably not enough to break through the afternoon high tide…but still there will be a few new waves in the water from both the NW and SW swells. I would expect mostly the same size as the morning but with more consistent knee-waist high sets and a few chest-shoulder high waves showing up around Ventura since the NW’er will filter through that region a little earlier than the others.

Winds look good on Tuesday…another super warm day with mostly light winds. Look for light to light/moderate offshore flow for the morning and then sort of a variable onshore sea-breeze (around 10-12 knots for the afternoon).



So overall nothing all that exciting…just a cruiser sort of day…big boards with lots of foam will be the best call, but a few of you lighter guys might be able to get away with a fishier shape at the NW standouts if conditions are right, you know...on the low tide…if you don’t eat all day…and drop the kids off at the pool before heading out…then, just then, it could be fun. Other than that…the weather will be nice and if you can hang out at the beach, get a little sun, maybe a soft little peak now and then, there are definitely worse ways to spend the day.

Here are the tides…

03/16/2010 Tuesday
04:12AM LDT 0.4 L
10:06AM LDT 4.4 H
04:15PM LDT 0.5 L
10:17PM LDT 4.9 H