San Diego Surf Forecast: Waves for the Weekend

Saturday and Sunday both look like fun surf days...though Saturday should be a touch bigger.

SW swell (190-210), which filled in Friday, will hold into Saturday before slowly fading out on Sunday. We will also have some minor NW windswell holding in the background. Check out the sideways CDIP forecast model...if you click on the image you can see the small light-blue dots along the coast...(I am not sure why they don’t lock down the model so that it doesn’t group the wave heights in 3-foot bands...if any of you CDIP guys are out there maybe you can answer that for me)...anyway back to the blue dots, those will be the top exposed areas. Note that North County has a lot more of them.



On Saturday wave heights will be in the chest-shoulder high range for most of the average SW exposed spots. Standout SW facing breaks, mostly through Northern SD, will have shoulder-head high waves with a few bigger sets mixing in at times. Don’t expect a ton of consistency from this swell...there will be some longer waits between the bigger sets...but it will be playful when it does show.

Sunday the SW’er will drop slightly. Still plenty of chest-high surf at the average spots but with less consistent shoulder high sets. Standout breaks will dip down to chest-shoulder high with some rare head high waves.

Winds look ok...we will still have some eddy on Saturday but it should slowly clean up on Sunday. Look for variable/southerly flow with some light texture through the morning and some W-WSW winds around 10-14 knots for the afternoons. Slightly slower wind speeds on Sunday.

Check out the NWS forecast models...

Saturday 8am



Sunday 8am



It is pretty much the same story we have had over the last couple of days...the SW’er is fun but a bit inconsistent and, at the exposed beach breaks, a little walled up. I expect pretty similar conditions/shape as we head into the weekend. The best waves are going to be at the points/reefs with good exposure to the swell, structures and solid sandbars will be a second option but the rides won’t be as long. Don’t sweat getting a ton of waves this weekend...there is plenty of swell coming through for the next several days.

Here are the tides...have a good one!

Saturday
12:12AM LDT 4.4 H
07:53AM LDT 0.3 L
02:53PM LDT 3.6 H
07:46PM LDT 2.8 L

Sunday
01:01AM LDT 3.9 H
08:31AM LDT 0.7 L
03:35PM LDT 3.8 H
09:19PM LDT 2.6 L

Make sure to check the www.socalsurf.com surf blog for more forecast details on the rest of Southern California.

Adam Wright
Forecaster
www.Socalsurf.com

Swell Alert – Healthy S swell on tap for next week

Good news...there is a healthy S swell (170-190) heading to SoCal that will peak early next week.
I have been watching a nice South Pacific storm spinning due south (almost SSE) of Southern California for the past several days. If you were looking at the forecast charts this system didn’t look like what you would “traditionally” expect to see in the South Pacific. Most times you have a low-pressure that develops down in the higher-latitudes, around the 50-60 degree latitude rage, over near New Zealand. The traditional system will move west-to-east through the storm track and, if it turns out to be a good swell-maker, it will make some sort of northward push while it is in our swell window.

This storm was actually what forecasters sometimes call a “cutoff-low”, which means that the trough of low-pressure is blocked off from the larger storm track by a ridge of high pressure. Generally the cut-off lows will develop in lower latitudes, which means it has a lot of access to all the warm-moist latent heat energy stored in the tropics. If the atmospheric conditions click in the right way a cut-off low can become quite intense as pulls up the tropical moisture...which is what happened in the case of this system.

Check out the sea-surface pressure chart of this system...I highlighted the good part of the fetch with the horrible red photoshop and bad penmanship.



And here is a shot from the QuikSCAT. You can see the 40-50 knot winds that developed as the storm started to fire off.





There were actually three really good things about this storm...first off was, that by being a cut-off low, it was quite a bit closer to us than it would normally be, which means that we will see a few thousand miles less of swell decay. Second the fetch in the storm made the good push northward which means that the wind had more time to produce the swell. Lastly the system hung together for a few days, which also gave the wind more time over the water, and added some duration to the swell.

Ok all this weather stuff is all well and good...but lets get on to the surf.

For Southern California, we will see this swell start to fill in quickly on Monday, (June 15th), and then peak on Tuesday-Wednesday before slowly fading through the rest of the week. We are also going to have some good-sized leftover SW swell (200-220) coming in from another storm that will peak over the upcoming weekend but will hold plenty of energy in early next week as the S swell hits. Sizewise I am expecting consistent shoulder-head high surf for the average spots and some overhead sizes as the top S-facing breaks.

The mix of these swells means that all of the summer spots will have some sort of surf early next week...so you are basically going to get to pick your poison when it comes to surf spots. Likely the points and reefs are going to be the best shape as this mix hits...but I am crossing my fingers that we see some windswell brew up over the weekend to help us break it up...and thin out the crowds in some spots.

This swell will actually hit Baja Sur (and Central/Northern Mainland Mexico) even harder than it hits SoCal. I expect the swell mix to move in fast in those areas on Sunday...peaking by the afternoon and holding through Monday before slowly dropping towards the end of the week. In Baja look for consistent head high surf at the S facing spots with sets going overhead+ (probably near 7’ faces on the big sets) as the swell peaks. Mainland Mexico will see similar sizes but may be a bit bigger as the SW swell hits the area harder.

Good times...check www.SDNN.com and www.Socalsurf.com for more updates on this swell as we get closer.

Adam Wright
Forecaster
www.Socalsurf.com

San Diego Surf Forecast: SW swell continues into the Weekend

We will have a couple of playful surf days over the weekend...nothing great but better than the super small sizes we had plaguing us during the beginning of the week. Keep in mind that while we have some swell we are still going to need to find a spot that can break it up a little bit.

The SW swell mix (190-220) will continue to peak into Saturday before slowly fading on Sunday. There will also be some minor windswell in the water...but with short periods (around 3-4 seconds which basically makes it “wind-chop” coming in from the outer waters)...so it won’t do much of a job of breaking up the longer mostly walled up lines at the beach breaks.

Check out the CDIP nowcast for this afternoon.



You can see that while all of SD is getting some surf the majority of the bigger sets and energy is going to be focusing in just a few areas like North County and a few select areas in Central County.

The wind looks ok for the next couple of mornings. Forecast charts are calling it light and variable...with a slight eddy-type flow to it. So look for weak southerly winds through the mornings with some building W-WNW winds 10-15 knots through the afternoons. Cloudy overcast skies at first and then some burn off through the end of the day.

Saturday Morning Winds



Sunday Morning Winds



Since there are a lot of beach breaks around my neck of the woods...I really wish that there was something to break this swell up a bit. Unfortunately we aren’t going to get much help in that department so you will have to be a bit more selective in your spot choice. Points and reefs will continue to be the best call...and then fall back on the piers/jetties/rocks/submerged cars/shipwrecks/really slow whales that can create a little crease in the lines coming in. You can still expect some longer waits between waves but we should have a little more consistency over the next couple of days.

Here are the tides...have a good one.

Saturday
03:42AM LDT -0.7 L
10:06AM LDT 3.4 H
02:32PM LDT 2.2 L
08:43PM LDT 5.8 H

Sunday
04:17AM LDT -0.8 L
10:45AM LDT 3.4 H
03:05PM LDT 2.3 L
09:15PM LDT 5.8 H

Have a good one...make sure to check out the www.socalsurf.com forecast blog if you need some info on the rest of Southern California.

Adam Wright
Forecaster
Socalsurf.com