Surf for Thursday – A little more size and a little texture

Thursday is looking pretty surfable…but the wind may get on a few spots after the morning session.

A new pulse of SW swell will help strengthen the blend of overlapping S-SW swells (180-215) and will mix with a bit of background NW energy (a little bit of NW swell and local windswell). There won’t be a ton of size…but the well exposed standout spots will end up being pretty playful on the lower tides.



The average spots are going to continue to be on the smaller side on Thursday…expect them to be in the knee-waist high range…with some chest high sets at the breaks that can pull in more of the SW swell. The standout SW spots and the best combo breaks (mostly in parts of Orange County and San Diego) will have some chest-high surf with some shoulder high+ sets sneaking in on the better tides.

Winds are mostly looking good…at least for the start of the day. Expect light/variable winds for most areas with some light/onshore flow for Santa Barbara and San Diego…and some light to almost-offshore flow for parts of Ventura, LA, and parts of Orange County. For the first couple of hours winds will be below the 5 knot range…but it won’t hold that way for long. There is a pretty consistent W-NW flow in the outer waters…and it will be fighting its way in by midmorning and we can expect building W winds to increase through the afternoon…likely topping out around 10-15 knots by the afternoon.





Like the last couple of days the morning will be the cleanest…and the low-tide will hit around 6:45-7:00am which will let us get a few clean waves while the tide starts to push in. I think your best bet will be to hit the S-SW facing spots during the dawn patrol, with the low-tide spots seeing better shape. If you wait too long the tide will start to swamp it out and the winds are going to chunk it up. I would still make sure to bring the wetsuit…we are going to need a few days of eddy (bite my tongue) to push the warmer water back in .

Here are the tides…

07/15/2010 Thursday
06:38AM LDT -0.5 L
01:05PM LDT 4.8 H
06:59PM LDT 1.5 L

Swell Alert – New S-SSW swell heading our way for next week

Another good looking South Pacific storm has been moving through our S-SSW swell window over the last few days and has setup another round of S-SSW swell that will arrive next week. It even has a second storm trailing behind the first that will help to keep this swell rolling for a few days after it peaks.



This storm has solid 35-40’ seas in that key part of fetch…and wind speeds running easily 40-50+ knots at times.



I am even seeing some pockets of 60-65 knot wind barbs in the center of that storm…that means this bad-boy had portions of fetch that were brushing nearly hurricane strength. Keep in mind that this isn’t a “computer model” this is actual recorded data from the WINDsat satellite.



The second system is still forming right now but it looks like it is going to have a little more of a southerly angle than the first. Since this one is traveling right on the wake of the first storm it gets to capitalize on all of the lovely sea-state set up by the super strong winds. The second storm isn’t as strong as the first…but it will still push a pretty decent sized swell that we can tack on to the end of the first one.

This S-SSW swell (180-210)will start to arrive in Southern California really late Sunday night (July 18) with some long-period energy in the 20-22 second range…this by itself won’t put much new surf on our beaches…but it will show on the buoys. The main part of the swell will be arriving throughout the day on Monday (July 19) and will eventually peak Tuesday through Wednesday (July 20-21) before slowly tapering off later toward the end of the week…but it won’t drop that fast or that much thanks to that second reinforcement of S swell.

Sizewise...Monday will start on the slow side…it will have a some new waves showing in the morning but the waits between sets may be a bit long. I expect a lot of chest-shoulder high surf for the average spots and maybe a few head high sets at the standouts…again it will be pretty inconsistent so expect to be waiting around for waves. By the afternoon the size will be on the way up…and we can expect some shoulder-overhead+ surf at the standouts by sundown.

As the swell peaks…(on Tuesday and Wednesday)…we can expect consistent chest-head high surf for the average S-SW facing spots along with some bigger overhead sets mixing in. The standout SSW-SW spots, mostly through OC and at a few of the other good summer spots as well, will have shoulder-overhead surf with some inconsistent sets going a couple of feet overhead. The best breaks (you know where they are already) will probably have some bigger waves mixing in…but that size won’t show everywhere.



This swell will actually hit Central America and Mainland Mexico harder than it hits Socal (like most of them do) and a bit earlier. That region can expect the SSW-SW swell (190-215 it is a little more westerly) to arrive faster throughout the day on Sunday…with the peak of the swell hitting mostly Sunday afternoon through Tuesday. The average S-SW facing spots can expect consistent overhead surf with sets going several feet overhead. The standout breaks will be well-overhead to brushing the double overhead range…while the best deepwater spots see some bigger sets mixing it up.

That is all I have for now…make sure to check the daily forecasts as this swell gets closer…and cross your fingers that this weather holds.

Waves for Wednesday – A few fun ones…make sure to pack the wetsuit

Wednesday is looking like a surf day.

We are going to have a mix of overlapping S-SW swells (180-215) coming in from a couple of different storms down in the SPAC. There will also be a mix of weak NW swell (290-300 but mostly over 295), and some building local WNW-NW windswell coming in from our outer waters. Looks like the swell mix will hold steady through the day…with another shot of SW swell arriving in the afternoon.



Sizewise…even though we have a lot of different swells, they aren’t super big. Since they are coming in from all over most breaks are going to have some sort of surf. Average spots with some S and WNW exposure can expect surf in the knee-waist high range with some inconsistent chest high sets at the breaks a little more open SW energy. The standout SW facing breaks and the really good combo spots (mostly in OC and SD) will be in the waist-chest high range fairly consistently along with some shoulder high+ sets showing during the lower tides. The bigger waves will still be a tad inconsistent…but fun when they show.

Before we get to the weather here is a quick note on Tuesday’s conditions…yeah Tuesday ended up being pretty clean, it sucks to get the forecast wrong, but Mother Nature has got a pretty solid track-record of playing by her own rules and if she wants the wind light, there isn’t much our weak-sauce little computers (or forecasters) can do about it.

Anyways, looking back at what set up the lighter winds…we basically got lucky on Tuesday. Monday’s winds pushed out the eddy/overcast set up we had going and then building high-pressure got an early start on moving over our area. The new ridge settled in faster thanks to a combination of “now colder” ocean temps and the clear evening skies that cooled off the air-mass over the coast and helped to set up a bit of a land-breeze to counter the onshore flow that was supposed to continue through the morning…which was cool for us as surfers (if you were paying attention), but lame for my forecast calling for onshore wind in the morning.

Ok enough of that…let’s move on to Wednesday. It looks like the eddy has been disrupted enough that our wind will remain light for Wednesday morning. Current forecasts are calling for light/variable to light/onshore flow for the morning…with wind speeds holding below 3-5 knots for most areas. These winds do shift onshore after mid-morning and will eventually come out of the W-WNW around 12-15 knots for most areas.





With winds staying lighter…and some playful sized waves on tap for the expose areas…tomorrow is looking pretty surfable, particularly this summer’s standards. I think that the morning will be the best call…but we will have to let the -1.0’ low tide fill in a little or shape may be a little drained…I bet the good spots will end up being pretty fun as the tide rolls in. One thing to keep in mind…I am getting emails from a lot of you guys saying the water temps dipped down to the low 60’s/upper 50’s in some areas, so I would plan on bringing the wetsuit if you don’t want your ‘nads to fall off.

07/14/2010 Wednesday
05:59AM LDT -1.0 L
12:21PM LDT 4.6 H
05:53PM LDT 1.5 L
11:42PM LDT 5.6 H