Monday’s Surf – fading and starting to get fugly

Monday will have a few waves but it looks like the weather starts to get funky and the swell will be fading.

Unfortunately the WNW swell that hit over the weekend is dropping fast…looks like it didn’t have enough fetch in our swell window to help it string together more than a couple of sessions. I was actually a little disappointed with how the WNW swell showed around my neck of the woods (North OC)…a few spots close by got fun on Saturday but I was always behind the eightball with other shit I had going on…by the time I could break free the wind had got to it. Sunday that swell was basically sad leftovers…some longboard fun but nothing to get fired up on. It looked like SD and Ventura did pretty well…particularly on Saturday. If anyone got photos and fee like sharing…email over if you get a chance

Anyway with the WNW swell dropping and just a small SW swell holding in the background there isn’t going to be a ton of surf tomorrow. Plus we got a high tide pushing through early in the morning which is going to honk up the dawn patrol.

Expect most breaks to have surf in the knee-waist high range while the standout combo spots in San Diego, and maybe South Orange County, see some waist-chest high+ sets. Expect soft slow shape early with some wind texture as well. Sets will be on the inconsistent side too…man I am just filled with great news.

Weather is looking funky…we have a new low hanging off the coast that will start to edge over SoCal later in the day. Winds are forecast to be light/variable through the morning but a general S-SE flow may start to develop around midday and then strengthen into Tuesday. Chance of light rain by the afternoon as well.

Really I am not planning on surfing tomorrow…nothing I saw forecast-wise is motivating enough to get out of bed early on Monday. Things do get better later this week as more S swell and more WNW energy starts to arrive, and next weekend is hinting that we might see some more Santa Ana flow as well. Sorry to be cryptic...I am burned out on typing right now...I post some more stuff on the longer-range set up tomorrow.

Here are the tides.

12:12AM LST 1.6’ L
06:28AM LST 5.8’ H
01:38PM LST -0.1’ L
07:42PM LST 3.6’ H

Swell Alert: Hawaii is about to get whacked

So this is a random swell alert but it is looking damn impressive.

Over the last couple of days the North Pacific storm track has really started to wake up, and like most of us it really isn't a morning person...in fact it is really f-ing grumpy…hangover grumpy…like how grumpy you would be if you woke up from a 36-hour drinking binge still on the bathroom floor and your upstairs neighbor was doing tae-bo and playing death metal at max volume. Yeah the North Pacific looks that grumpy.

The short-range forecast is showing a very serious storm developing in the next 3-4 days that will very likely send a super-sized swell to Hawaii by the end of the week.

Check out this wave-model forecast for this storm. (As always a big thanks to Mark at Stormsurf.com for letting me use his images…make sure to check out his site www.stormsurf.com )



No that is not an island sitting to the North of Hawaii…it is a big ass storm, fueled by a mixture of a cold storm from Siberia and a nice energy laden extra-tropical system from over by Japan. These extra-tropical storms are gnarly…almost ever major swell generated in the North Pacific is a result of a storm going extra-tropical.

And yes you are reading that right…the model is calling for nearly 50-foot seas near the core of the storm.

Based on today’s forecasts I am expecting almost 15-20-foot of deepwater NW swell hitting Hawaii on Friday and peaking into Saturday (Nov 28-29th). Swells with that much deepwater energy, when they hit those steep reefs around Hawaii, generally create waves in the 25-30’ face range at the average spots and potentially some 30-40-foot faces at top breaks like Jaws over on Maui.

If it pulls together it should be pretty spectacular.

Waves for the weekend - Lets do some surfboard riding

We are going to have some surf this weekend and both Saturday and Sunday look like surf days. About the only downer will be some patchy fog that could make visibility a problem at times.

Swellwise we are going to see a new WNW swell (280-300) move in this evening, peak early on Saturday, and hold into Sunday before slowly fading out. We will also have a small but slowly increasing SW swell (190-210) that begins to fill in a touch on Saturday but eventually peaks on Sunday.

Wave height for the average exposed areas will be in the waist-chest high range with some chest-shoulder high sets at times.

Standout breaks, mostly the top WNW facing spots in Ventura and San Diego as well as a few good combo breaks, will have surf in the shoulder-head high range with some overhead sets mixing in.

Weather/Wind looks good for both mornings (well except for the fog). We will have light and variable to light offshore winds for both mornings (more offshore on Saturday) and just variable winds below 12 knots for the afternoons. Sunday afternoon/evening we may see winds start to switch around to the S-SE.

Check out the COAMPS Forecast on Saturday Morning



And Sunday Morning



There are going to be plenty of waves this weekend but you are definitely going to have to stick to the top WNW facing breaks in V-town and San Diego if you are looking for consistently larger surf. Really though I think that we are going to be able to have some fun at most spots, particularly breaks that can pull in the swell combo, which is good for me since I am sort of locked into the local beach breaks for the weekend. I would probably try and hit it in the mornings if you want clean conditions but it should stay fairly surfable through the afternoons as well.

Here are the tides

Saturday
05:28AM LST 5.3' H
12:13PM LST 0.9' L
05:54PM LST 3.8' H
11:37PM LST 1.2' L

Sunday
05:59AM LST 5.6' H
12:58PM LST 0.4' L
06:52PM LST 3.7' H

Have a good one...hope you score a few!