Wetsand, Surfshot and LOLA say its going to be pretty big on Saturday. Possible double to triple overhead conditions. I take that with a grain of salt but it still looks like there is going to be some sizeable surf down here in San Diego.
You don’t need a Rhino for those conditions! This is typical swell hype. Like rain forecasts for Southern California, they always seem to overstate the truth. I miss the old days. You check the surf. If it is good, you go out, otherwise you go to work. I love it when these surf wizards predict a swell but miss the first day and you check the beach only to find 150 guys sitting in the water even though the surf is ankle high. Other times, you check the surf and there is no one out and it is pumping, because they said the waves weren’t going to hit for 2 days. Instead of swell prediction, I regard those services as crowd prediction. Just for the record, I will be throwing a gun in the back of the truck just to be prepared in case those surf wizards get lucky!
Some of them are getting pretty good at predicting Northern California swell. I notticed that the models were accurate when I was in Peru this summer also.
An intense storm with hurricane force winds has developed in the Gulf of Alaska today. A west-northwesterly swell from this storm is expected to arrive along the Diablo Canyon coastline on Friday night at 5 to 7 feet (with an 18-20 second period), peaking on Saturday at 13 to 15 feet (with a 15-17 second period).
Swell Generation Potential This is not an extraordinary storm, just your usual run-of-the-mill winter North Pacific storm. If it continues to evolve as forecast a solid swell will result for California. And given the complete lack of any real swell for weeks in the North Pacific, this is something to get interested in. For Hawaii, whatever swell they are to receive is in the water and on the way. After Wednesday PM, the fetch is to start taking aim on California and provide no significant additional energy for the Islands. Overall the fetch from this storm was positioned in the Gulf far enough away from Hawaii (1284-1959 nmiles) to allow the resulting swell to be groomed reasonably clean as it moves towards the Islands, but close enough so that decay should not be much of an issue and aimed well enough so that spreading should make up any shortfall in the fetches aim. With 36 hours of seas in the 30-31 ft range, a small significant class swell should result with most height in the 16-17 sec period band. Conversely, as of today’s report, the storm/gale is just starting to get in the prime California swell window. Most fetch prior to this point has been aimed south of the coast. But the problem now becomes how close will the fetch get? It is to move rather close to the coast (609 nmiles with fetch as far away as 2621 nmiles), not allowing any distance for the swell to unwrap. And weather continues to certainly be an issue too for locations north of Pt Conception. This tends to favor Southern CA, not so much for size but for protection from the associated frontal trough and raw swell elements. At this time it seems likely that CA will see swell periods a ragged mix of 14-17 secs producing significant class size north of Pt Conception, with lesser size but somewhat better quality for locations south of Pt Conception (though still a bit raw). Will monitor. Hawaii (centered on the North Shore of Oahu): Expect swell arrival starting Thursday (12/4) at 11 PM HST with period at 17 secs and size coming up fast. Swell to be maxing by Friday (12/5) at 8 AM with swell 10.5 ft @ 15-17 secs (15-16 ft faces) and holding through daylight hours with period moving to and reaching 14 secs by 6 PM. Swell fading some overnight. Period and size down on Saturday (12/6) sunrise to 9.2 ft @ 11-13 secs (9-11 ft faces) and fading through the day. Swell Direction: 341-358 degrees North CA (centered onSan Francisco): Rough data suggests swell arrival late Friday night and maxing first light Saturday (12/6) under poor conditions. Details to be provided as the storm moves further through it’s lifecycle. Swell Direction: 285-297 degrees South CA (centered on Dana Point): Rough data suggests first indications of the swell starting Saturday (12/6) at 10 AM and building through the day, maxing by 3 PM and holding through the evening. Solid 14 second energy to continue but dropping by sunrise Sunday (12/7). Details to be provided as the storm moves further through it’s lifecycle. Swell Direction: 293-303 degrees
Nice…seems to me I read the exact excerpt somewhere else, oh yeah, stormsurf.com…you could give them some credit.
Well, Wetsand on Tuesday predicted TRIPLE OVERHEAD surf on Saturday. Now, they dropped the call to NEAR DOUBLE OVERHEAD on Saturday. NOAA says 4-6 ft on Saturday. Wetsand says rain is certain, no other weather source says there will be rain. What is it with these weather wizards? Do they just throw darts at a list of weather possibilities or is there actually some sort of organized scientific predicting going on here?
Wetsand and Stormsurf offer plenty of tools to check out satellite views, computer models, etc. The “hosts” simply give it their best shot using the tools available.
amen Aaron-“F-” the internet swell hype crap…tune in to nature’s indicators…
Back in the 70’s I was living in Palo Alto and hitchhiking to HMB with my board on the days I guessed would be good. I’d check the wind conditions by phoning the cemetery at the top of Hwy 92 and ask them which way the flag was pointing. As long as it was pointing towards the ocean, I’d go. Crude use of technology to figure out the conditions.
we have a pretty good indicator of coming surf. If there is a surf contest for kids 13 and under during the winter(like this sat. at pleasure point)it will be double overhead plus. If there is a contest for adults it will be knee high. works almost everytime. For summer south forcasts just check the schedule for Ride-a-wave foundation(www.rideawave.org),on ride-a-wave days it will be 5 foot and glassy.Have fun.
Give the guys a break, there providing a service, for free, for those that care to tune in. Nobody is forcing you to look at their predictions. Of course it’s not an exact science, but their doing a decent job with the resources they have. Lets not forget that storms are just about as “alive” as anything can get. They speed up, slow down, switch direction, feed off energy and dissipate… quite chaotically. Between wetsand, stormsurf, LOLA, and CDIP, you can gather a lot of information about what is out there… better than anyone “in tune with nature” – I don’t care what kind of trick ankle you have. And, if your taking notes, which most probably aren’t, you can really zone in on what swell directions and periods make it to what breaks… and work best with what tides, cross swells, winds, etc. That being said, I still check the ocean on a regular basis, and I’m sure the guys at wetsand do too… anyone who takes a forecast for Gospel is a fool.
My birthday is this weekend…there is never surf on my birthday (or Father’s Day for that matter). But the real guarantee is that John Mellor is waxing Chamberlin’s Green Monster…
Happy Birthday Lee – if you find a bar of wax under your windshield wipers, you’ll know who it’s from. (no, NOT the angry locals, that’s when they put the wax somewhere else !! ha ha)
the problem is this service has created frenzied crowds from here to baja, looking for something that isn’t there, clogging the lineup on even marginal days- days that use to have just a handfull(or less) people out.
We had surf reports back in the dark ages…it consisted of a “thumbs up or down” gesture while passing a vehicle with boards on top coming the opposite way.It worked well until everyone starting shooting you the finger.There were certain people whom you learned to recognize and if they gave you the “thumbs down” you knew that the waves were on and you went right to their break.Beleive it or not I can remember when there were so few surfers on the east coast that people would pull over and talk story on the side of the road if you had boards on your car.Things sure have changed eh? R.B.
Hey, waddaya mean? I ain’t no wax slave! Happy birthday Lee! Jeff’s birthday was 12/2. We took a little cruise and basically got walloped by direct swell in the overhead range at a very mysto beachbreak spot I’ve never even been near much less surfed.
My birthday is this weekend…there is never surf on my birthday (or Father’s Day for that matter). But the real guarantee is that John Mellor is waxing Chamberlin’s Green Monster------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After all of those years of no surf on your birthday, and since your old and grey anyway, it’s time for a change… all the set waves to you. Happy Birthday Mr.Lee!