THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Feels like I've been hibernating.

SURF:
Could it have been any worse this past week?!

Lack of storms in the Pacific resulted in one abysmal 7 days around here. We had a little blip on the radar from the SW but only the OC magnets picked up waist high+ waves; so down here in SD it was flat as a pancake.

Luckily for us, buoys in central CA were showing new NW this evening and we'll get chest high swell tomorrow afternoon. By Saturday we'll have head high sets and overhead waves in SD. The swell starts to drop on Sunday but we'll still have fun surf from a smaller reinforcing swell.

Water temps are still nice at 62 degrees and tides the next few days are 3' at sunrise, up to 4.5' before lunch, and down to 1' at sunset. Make sure to keep up to date on the waves/weather at Twitter/North County Surf.

FORECAST:

After a fun weekend of surf, it's pretty small by Tuesday, but we get a smaller boost of chest high NW on Wednesday.

And without skipping a beat, models show another storm forming late next week for more head high+ NW on Friday afternoon into Saturday. Looks like we're back on track for fun waves.

WEATHER:

Our weather has finally warmed up! Just in time for showers this weekend. And still no major storms in sight. Long story short, clouds increase tomorrow with a chance of showers by Saturday. Then high pressure sets up early next week and our nice weather returns. And as soon as I see a real rainmaker on the horizon, you'll be the first to know.

BEST BET:
Saturday or... next Saturday. And a little dash of flavor mid-week.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is the Nation's scorekeeper in terms of addressing severe weather and climate events. As part of it's responsibility of monitoring and assessing the climate, NCDC tracks and evaluates climate events in the U.S. that have the greatest economic impacts. NCDC is frequently called upon to provide summaries of global and U.S. temperature and precipitation trends, extremes, and comparisons in their historical perspective. Below are the weather and climate events that have had the greatest economic impact from 1980 to 2014. The U.S. has sustained 178 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including inflation adjustments for 2014). The total cost of these 178 events since 1980 exceeds $1 trillion.

2014 in Context

In 2014, there were 8 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included a drought event, a flooding event, 5 severe storm events, and a winter storm event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 53 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted. The climate events totaling $1 billion+ in damages were (in no particular order):

-Western Drought, all of 2014
-Rockies/Plains Severe Weather, September 29th to October 2nd.
-Plains Severe Weather, June 3rd to 5th.
-South/Plains Severe Weather, April 2nd to 3rd.
-Rockies/Midwest/Eastern Severe Weather, May 18th to 23rd.
-Michigan/Northeast Flooding, August 11th to 13th
-Midwest/Southeast/Northeast Winter Storm, January 5th to 8th
-Midwest/Southeast/Northeast Tornadoes and Flooding, April 27th to May 1st

The Last 30+ Years

The distribution of damage from U.S. Billion-dollar disaster events across the 1980-2014 period of record is dominated by tropical cyclone losses. From 1980-2014, land falling tropical cyclones have caused the most damage ($539 billion) and also have the highest average event cost ($15.9 billion per event). Drought ($202 billion), severe storms ($145 billion) and inland flooding ($87 billion) have also caused considerable damage based on the list of billion-dollar events. It is of note that severe storms are responsible for the highest number of billion-dollar disaster events (70) yet the average event cost is among the lowest ($2.2 billion) but still substantial. Tropical cyclones and drought represent the second and third most frequent event types (34 and 22), respectively.

2015
So what does 2015 hold in store? Well, if the El Nino ever kicks into full gear, it will ease the burden of the drought, wildfires, and limit East Coast tropical cyclones. But on the flip side, increase the chance of severe storm, winter storm, and flooding damages. So pretty much don't expect a slow down in billion dollar storms this year.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Not the best wave in the world but sure better than it has been around here lately. 

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
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