You name it next week. Except clean conditions.
SURF:
Pretty amazing week. Not the biggest surf but head high sets, amazing weather, and mellow crowds for the most part. Water temps even hit 70 degrees in La Jolla on 4/20! (No jokes please, I'm serious).
FORECAST:
The cold front mentioned above should clear out by Monday afternoon and in it's wake will be short period overhead NW windswell through Tuesday.
WEATHER:
EL NINO'S NOT OVER! WE GOT STORMS! Not actually storms per say, more like a chance of showers and wind. I'm pretty excited nonetheless. The tail end of a storm up N will make it's way through tonight and give us a slight chance of showers and some breezy weather at best. Things clear up Sunday morning then another weak cold front moves through Sunday evening for a chance of light showers again and breezy conditions (at most). We get a slight break on Tuesday then models show MAYBE another weak system and showers again late Wednesday into Thursday. And breezy conditions. Again. All in all some April showers making May flowers. That's all. Make sure to keep up to date on the conditions at Twitter/North County Surf.
BEST BET:
Hard to say with all these off and on weak cold fronts messing things up all week. Plenty of swell from the SW and NW the next 7-10 days- just messy conditions when all these new swells hit each day...
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Sure we didn’t get the rain we were ‘promised’ down here in southern California nor did we get the bombing La Jolla Cove swells I prayed to God for every night, but the rest of the world seemed to do alright from El Nino this past year. From record warm ocean temperatures to above average rain and snow in the northwest, it wasn’t a total bust. Take for example the worldwide hurricanes recently. In the past six months, the Earth has witnessed several of the freakiest, most intense storms in recorded history. The USA today last week gave us a quick recap:
Spurred by the highest ocean temperatures observed to date, record-breaking tropical cyclones — the class of storms that includes hurricanes and typhoons — have explosively developed in three regions: the northeast Pacific Ocean, the south Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. These storms may be a harbinger of increasingly severe tropical cyclones in future decades as the Earth continues warming.
The most recent vicious storm, Tropical Cyclone Fantala, attained peak winds of 173 mph north of Madagascar this past weekend. According to meteorologist Bob Henson at Weather Underground, it became the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Indian Ocean. Fantala has since lost steam and has weakened to a tropical storm over the southern Indian Ocean . Fortunately, it has avoided any land areas.
Just two months before Fantala, Tropical Cyclone Winston became the fiercest storm on record in the South Pacific, with peak winds of 185 mph. This storm devastated parts of Fiji. (And left Tavarua mostly unscathed thank goodness).
And four months before Winston, Hurricane Patricia became the strongest storm measured to date by the National Hurricane Center in the Northeast Pacific. Its peak winds reached 215 mph before it slammed into Mexico’s west coast. Patricia was just one of 25 Category 4 or 5 tropical cyclones in 2015 in the Northern Hemisphere, the most on record by far.
This is not to mention November 2013’s Super Typhoon Haiyan, which became the strongest tropical cyclone in the northwest Pacific (and the Eastern Hemisphere) based on wind speed. Its 195 mph maximum sustained winds devastated parts of the Philippines.
To be sure, because the intensity of these storms was not observed by aircraft, except for Patricia, there is some uncertainty in their exact measurements. And, the period of record in the Indian Ocean, where Fantala developed, only dates to 1990. But all of these storms formed in areas where ocean temperatures were much warmer than normal and during an era in which ocean temperatures are warming.
The recent ocean heating provided by El Niño, particularly in the Pacific, has certainly played a role in this flare-up of intense storms. But the longer-term ocean warming trend, related to growing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is very likely to be playing an important role as well.
Published studies have documented an increase in the intensity of the strongest storms in several ocean basins in recent decades, although an unambiguous global warming signal in tropical cyclone activity hasn’t emerged. Such a signal is expected to become clearer in the future.
A NOAA-led study published in September projects increases in “the number and occurrence days of very intense category 4 and 5 storms” by the end of the century, and, more generally, NOAA projects an increase in the average intensity of tropical cyclones.
Fantala, Winston, Patricia and Haiyan may portend more frequent and intense severe tropical cyclones, especially during El Niño episodes in the Pacific (in the Atlantic, more intense storms would occur during La Niñas).
So what does that mean for us? With or without El Nino, look for increased hurricane activity in the coming years…
PIC OF THE WEEK:
The Monster From New Zealand Swell, 1975, Morro Bay. Or maybe this actually is New Zealand. Man I can't remember. That was a long time ago and I was in a haze for most of the 70's anyway.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Exalted
Guest Star On The Love Boat
Bumped Jaws At Jaws And Broke Our Jaws
