THE Surf Report- Early Edition

That was one helluva year.

SURF:
I'm literally at a loss for words as we close out 2015. From starting the year in a drought, to a ton of rain in the spring, to an overactive hurricane season, to record rains this summer, to the hottest year on record- oh- and we're in the middle of one of the biggest El Ninos ever- I'm just waiting for the locust, floods, and the plague. Wouldn't surprise me.

Had another fun week of surf and fairly manageable storms and today we had perfect weather and waist high+ NW swell. Tomorrow looks to be the same and that rolls into Saturday.

By Sunday we start to see signs of a new NW swell but it will only pick up a notch to the chest high+ range. Beware the S winds though late in the day Sunday (more on that in the weather section below). Water temps have dropped A LOT- 60 if you're lucky- due to all the windy storms we've had lately.

And tides the next few days are really mellow- 3' at sunrise, down to 2.5' mid-morning, and up to 3.5' late afternoon.

FORECAST:

So if the models are right, we finally get our Winter El Nino surf next week. As Sunday starts to fill in from the NW, Monday really kicks in with overhead sets. Unfortunately the beginning of Winter El Nino weather kicks in too with showers and wind. Nothing major but that holds into Tuesday.

Then things really get turned up to 11 with sets to 11' and larger surf in SD on Wednesday. That holds into Friday (along with real wind and rain).

Models then show another overhead NW arriving next weekend along with more wind and rain. Finding pockets of semi-clean surf will be hard to come by- along with clean water.

WEATHER:

So maybe- just maybe- our Winter El Nino is arrving next week. But first up is nice weather this weekend with temps in the mid-60's during the day and low 40's at night. The jet stream dips south finally and takes aim at northern Baja/southern California. The first storm moves through northern Baja on Monday and we just get some showers here in SD. The next storm should be a direct hit for us on Wednesday. After that, models show another storm for next Friday. All in all some windy and wet weather next week. Finally. Make sure to keep up to date on the waves/weather at Twitter/North County Surf. 
 
BEST BET:
Monday morning with new NW in full swing and the last of our semi-clean days and water quality.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

As we close out the year waiting for the Winter El Nino to arrive, how did 2015 shape up weather-wise? Glad you asked. We had:

-January 24/25: Santa Ana winds reached 54mph in San Diego and 35 in Solana Beach to mow down trees and raise temps to 90 degrees at the beaches.
-February 12: More Santa Ana winds with gusts over 80 in the local mountains

-March 2: Hail storm left 'snow' on the beaches of Huntington and waterspouts in SD
-March 14: Record heat wave. Oceanside hit 92 degrees (in winter mind you)
-May 14: Record rainfall in San Diego. 1.3" in 1 hour and 1.57" in a 24 hour period
-June 6-13: Hurricane Andres and Blanca bring thunderstorms to the San Bernardino mountains and hot offshore flow to our valleys/coast. Then dry lightening strikes to central CA to start 35 wild fires and rain at the beaches in SD. The local deserts received up to 1.5" of rain.
-June 30: Significant lighting across coast/valleys. 680 cloud to ground and 3225 total flashes. Beaches closed in Orange and SD. Legoland closed.
-July 17-19: Hurricane Dolores makes a mess of southern California. Wind gusts of 60 mph in the local deserts and lightening starts a wildfire in Cajon Pass with 20 vehicles destroyed/burned. SD receives a ton of rain again- this time 1.69" (as a comparison, SD only received 1.65" from January to April). 4" of rain in local mountains.
-September 8-14: Heat wave. Temps hit 90's at the coast and over 100 in the inland valleys. Tropical Storm Linda then turns up the humidity (thanks) and drops 1.5" of rain in Oceanside and 3" in the local mountains.
-October 3 and 12: Low pressure from British Columbia dropped down the coast on 10/3 and gave us showers and moved east towards Texas. No big deal. It then decided to COME BACK and give us rain again 9 days later on 10/12! (The Zombie Apocalypse).
-October 10: highest low temps on record. Meaning: Camp Pendleton was 82 degrees. AT NIGHT. SD was 76. October in general was 7.7 degrees above normal for the month.

-Bonus 1: 2015 was the warmest on record for SD
-Bonus 2: Scripps Pier water temps hit 80 degrees briefly on September 9. Scripp's water temps also hit at least 70 degrees or higher from June 24 to November 2. That's over 4 straight months. Crazy.
-Bonus 3: Water expands when it's warm (in this case, thanks to El Nino) and a storm surge helped propel the tide to 7.8' on November 25th in La Jolla- a record high.
-Bonus 4: El Nino recorded the highest above average water temperature anomaly- 5.5 degrees above the norm
-Bonus 5: On October 23, Hurricane Patricia was recorded as the strongest storm in HISTORY in the East Pacific AND Atlantic with sustained winds of 200mph (a category 5). It also went from a tropical storm (73mph) to Category 5 (over 157mph) in just 24 hours. That is one ANGRY storm.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

As we close out the year, I thought I'd stick with North County San Diego for the Pic of the Week. As Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz said 'There's no place like home, there's no place like home'. Dorothy also dealt with tornadoes and witches so I'm sure she didn't have surfing in mind when she said that but I agree nonetheless.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Titan of Industry
Getting a Bowl Game Named After Me
My New Year Resolution Is To Surf 8 Days A Week