The stars are aligning. Jinx!
SURF:
Had a fun week of surf and the weather cooperated too. And if that wasn't good enough- this weekend will be better. Unless of course you're superstitious then I just jinxed it.
As you probably heard by now, we had a solid storm between Japan and Hawaii a few days ago and it's headed our way. Now ideally it would have been great to have the storm hold together and come steam rolling through here but instead our high pressure blocked it before it got too close so we'll have long period inconsistent surf. Look for tomorrow to start off on the small side- especially with the mid-morning high tide- but by sundown we should see some shoulder high waves. Saturday the swell will peak with sets a couple feet overhead and close to double overhead at the best SD spots. On Sunday it stays solid with overhead sets here and 10' sets in SD. Most spots in central OC will be blocked by the offshore islands so it will be considerably smaller.
Water temps still are still a comfortable 61 degrees- and tides the next few days are about 1' at sunrise, up to 4.5' at lunch, and down to 1' at sunset. Make sure to keep up to date on the waves/weather at
Twitter/North County Surf.
FORECAST:
If you're still hungry for surf after gorging on plenty of waves this weekend, we've got another NW lined up for Tuesday. Not as big as the weekend swell but still head high sets in north county SD and slightly overhead in SD.
On it's heels is a couple storms on the forecast charts- one off Japan this weekend and one off Antarctica towards the end of the month. If they hold, we should get head high NW towards next weekend and a small SW for the OC in early February. Nothing really big but at least fun waves.
WEATHER:
Interesting week ahead. High pressure is setting up shop today and we'll have warm 'Santa Ana' winds Friday afternoon through Saturday. Look for offshore winds in SD to be around 10-20 mph and in the OC 20-30 mph. Along with the offshore winds, temps at the beaches should be near 80 and sunny. Combine it with a solid NW swell and you've got epic conditions. Prepare to break your step up!
Now we get to the interesting part (if that wasn't unique enough)- we have a low pressure system coming down the Pacific but the high pressure will block it. So it instead will come up underneath us, draw in some tropical moisture, and we'll get showers Monday into Tuesday. A few odd things about this- for one it's coming from the S instead of the N during our winter. Second is the warm tropical air- so no snow in our mountains- but rather showers across southern California and air temps in the mid to high 60's (vs. that really cold storm we had earlier in the month where our air temps were in the high 30's at the beaches and our local hills got a dusting of snow). And lastly- our air will be REALLY dry due to the Santa Ana winds this weekend, so how long will it take us to get our moisture back so the forthcoming storm can generate some rain?! Or will it all evaporate before it hits the ground?! Regardless, we'll get back to normal mid-week then a shot of 'winter' type showers towards next weekend. So in a nutshell- summer like weather this weekend, tropical showers late Monday, and normal winter type showers late in the week. What else could possibly happen?!
BEST BET:
Do you even need to ask?! Saturday with the offshore winds and firing NW swell fool!
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Notice the extreme tides earlier in the week? We had high tides at almost 7' and a low tide of around -1.5'. That's a tide swing of over 8'. That's Bay of Fundy tides baby! (Not really- they have a tide swing of 50'). But regardless, we hardly get an 8' difference around here. So what caused the extreme tides? The King Tide to be exact. Let's start off with the basic tides first though. Tides occur due to the gravitational influence of the sun and moon. Although the moon's gravitational force is much smaller than that of the sun, the moon's influence on the tide is much greater due to it's close proximity to the earth. So what makes the King Tides so extreme? First up, the moon's orbit is not a perfect circle around the Earth- it is elliptical. When the moon is closest to the Earth, it's influence on the tides is greatest. The Earth's orbit is also elliptical and so when it is closest to the sun AND the moon is also at it's closest to us, both of these forces make the extreme tides... a.k.a. King Tides. Kind of cool to see the tides so extreme- makes the rocky unsurfable spots rideable at high tide and the mysto reefs come alive at low tide.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Surfed this place back in the 80's with no one out for hundreds of miles. Got chased in by Orcas- only to see Bigfoot tearing through my gear on the beach. Decided to paddle back out and try my luck with the Orcas. For more legends and myths, check out the work of
Mark McInnis.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Whiz
Was Mistaken Yesterday For Lorenzo Lamas
Triple Threat: In-line Skates/Razor Scooter/Boogie Boarding
