Surf Check

 

Fall is officially here. We’ve got cloudy conditions, cool temperatures, a cold front on the way, and solid NW swell on the horizon.

But let’s take a look at today first. The excitement we’ve had out in the surf the past month from Hurricane Marie, tropical clouds overhead, and good NW/SW combo has been replaced by low clouds today, small waist high combo surf, and empty line-ups.  Water temps are still holding though at 70 thanks to the pseudo El Nino.

 

Our weather doesn’t do much better the next few days as we have weak high pressure trying to set up tomorrow for slightly sunnier skies and air temps in the low 70’s. An early season storm then takes aim at Northern California later this week and it will kick up our clouds down here again for cool temps and overcast skies. Summer is officially over. High pressure may return early next week for more mild temps and sunnier skies then the next cold front takes aim at California later next week for more clouds and cooler temperatures down here.

 

As advertised above, our water temps are doing well for late September- low 70’s- and the tides the next few days are 3’ at sunrise, 5’ mid-morning, down to 1’ around 3pm, and back up to 3’ at sunset.

 

So what’s going on the next few days in the surf world? Plenty. First up is some NW groundswell from the storm mentioned above. That starts to arrive on Thursday evening with shoulder high sets in north county SD and overhead sets in south SD. As the weak cold front moves through on Saturday, NW winds in our outer waters will kick up more shoulder high NW windswell here and head high+ for SD.

 

On its heels, models show tropical storm Rachel trying to take shape the next few days. Its forecast track will move up and offshore of the Baja Peninsula and into our window this weekend as a hurricane. If that’s the case, we may get some fun chest high S swell towards Sunday/Monday but it may be hard to see from all the NW windswell on top of it.

 

After that we have a late season SW groundswell headed our way from a storm building today in the southern hemisphere. Look for chest high waves around the 30^th and peaking head high waves on the 2^nd. The OC will see some slightly bigger sets.

 

It then rebuilds a couple days later and we get more head high+ waves on the 3^rd/4^th with the OC being a few feet overhead. Who says they don’t believe in reincarnation?!

All in all some fall type weather the next week as well as every type of swell imaginable- NW windswell, SW groundswell, NW groundswell, and S hurricane swell (if we’re lucky)!