San Diego Surf forecast: Friday’s Surf – Building combo swell on Friday

We will have more of a swell combo on Friday...there will be a mix of building SW swell (190-215 or so), leftover S-SW swell from earlier this week, and building WNW windswell. We already have a little more of the windswell in the water here on Thursday but this will continue to build through the day on Friday and looks like it is going to max out over the weekend. Check out the CDIP 3-day forecast...(take in mind that a lot of the “swell heights” will actually be quite a bit of short-period chop from increasing outer water winds...this isn’t a huge NW swell all of a sudden).



The increasing windswell (and increasing outer water winds) are sort of a mixed blessing...on one hand we are going to get some more cross-up to the southern hemi swells, which will make the beach breaks a bit more fun. But on the other hand the stronger outer water winds spin up the “coastal eddy” which means S-SW winds for many of the more-exposed areas and some steady crumble/texture at spots facing the wrong way.

On Friday...fortunately...it looks like the wind starts off slow...mostly light and variable in the morning with only a couple of small pockets of texture. Look for NW winds around 10-14 knots by the afternoon.



Surfwise we are going to see a lot of waist-chest high waves at the average exposed spots with some chest-shoulder high sets at the best combo breaks. The bigger waves will be more consistent in the afternoon as the mix of S-SW swell fills back in and the local windswell starts to build up as well. I would look for the biggest waves around Central SD county...most likely at the beach breaks and a few of the well exposed reefs.

I think that you should be able to find some rideable waves almost all S-SW facing spots...the NW windswell breaks will be a bit soft in the morning. The tides aren’t going to do a lot to help us tomorrow...so you might want to stick with breaks that can handle a little bit more water.

Here are the tides...

01:45AM LDT 0.0 L
07:59AM LDT 3.2 H
12:26PM LDT 2.0 L
06:53PM LDT 6.0 H

Have a good one!

Adam Wright
www.socalsurf.com