THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Smorgasborg.

SURF:

Good NW earlier in the week has been replaced by record temps today and smaller surf. Same is on tap tomorrow as we just have leftover small NW with a touch of SW and Santa Ana conditions. Saturday is a carbon copy of Friday which is a carbon copy of today which is a carb- nevermind.

Sunday we have a small cold front coming down the coast which may kick up the NW windswell/groundswell for chest high sets towards SD. Basically as high pressure dies, the swell will fill in (and conversely, as high pressure builds, the swell dies, as was evident the 2nd half of this week).

Tides are around 3' at sunrise, up to 5' after lunch, and down to 2' at sunset (and for those of you keeping score at home, sun comes up around 7am now and goes down about 6pm). Water temps are still in the mid-60's.

FORECAST:
Things are starting to heat up in the Aleutians but it's taking it's sweet time.

The work week starts off small and then we see a fun chest high NW fill in towards Wednesday as a small SW swell arrives too. Those swells last into Friday mornng.

Models are also showing a late season hurricane forming the middle of next week which may give us a small S swell next weekend. Further out, a big storm is forecasted to form in the Aleutians late next week which could give us head high+ NW towards Halloween. Spooky.

WEATHER:

Fall may finally be arriving. But not until after Saturday. A couple more days of hot dry weather then moisture increases late Saturday into early Sunday as a trough of low pressure moves in from the N. At the same time, tropical moisture from the S heads our way too. By Sunday afternoon the combination of weather events we give us some light showers. That lasts into Monday. Weak high pressure sets up mid-week and then another low pressure system heads down from the N next weekend- for rain on Halloween? Make sure to keep up to date on any developing storms at Twitter/North County Surf.

BEST BET:
Nothing really until the small NW/SW arrives late next week. Hopefully the rain/winds hold off until the weekend.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

As we head towards our ‘rainy season’ (rain being a relative term since we only get about 10” here in southern California), I thought it would be interesting to see what real weather is like across the US; whether it’s rain, drought, or snow. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has put together some great data to digest. Here’s what they had to say:

The Wettest and Driest Places in America
The lists below  show the ten wettest and ten driest locations in the United States. These are annual normals, or what would be expected in the mythical “average” year.

Ten wettest stations in the United States
1 Yakutat State Airport, AK 155.12"
2 Ketchikan Int’l Airport, AK 141.25"
3 Hilo Int’l Airport, HI 126.72"
4 Annette Island Airport, AK 101.63"
5 Quillayute State Airport, WA 99.54"
6 Mt. Washington, NH 96.87"
7 Cordova | M.K. Smith Airport, AK 90.42"
8 Sitka Airport, AK 86.81"
9 Stampede Pass, WA 81.23"
10 Kodiak Airport, AK 78.00"
 

Ten driest stations in the United States
1 Yuma Airport, AZ 3.30"
2 Las Vegas | McCarran Airport, NV 4.19"
3 Barrow | Post-Rogers Airport, AK 4.53"
4 Bishop Airport, CA 5.17"
5 Mercury | Desert Rock Airport, NV 5.93"
6 Bakersfield Airport, CA 6.47"
7 Big Piney |  Marbleton Airport, WY 6.48"
8 Winslow Municipal Airport, AZ 7.01"
9 Alamosa San Luis Airport, CO 7.31"
10 Lancaster | William J. Fox Field, CA 7.38"

Unlike extreme temperature stations, which were dominated by where you are on a map, the “ten wettest” list is dominated by what you see when you look out the window on a clear day. It’s no accident that all of these stations are within a few miles of some pretty substantial summits: mountains play a huge role in local precipitation. That cements our first precipitation truism: the windward sides of mountain ranges tend to be significantly wetter than the leeward sides. So how does that work? The mountains provide the mechanism to lift moist air until it cools enough to condense cloud droplets (or form snowflakes) that are big enough to fall to earth. Or, to put it a little less technically, the mountains will “wring out” the precipitation from moist air. Unlike other weather mechanisms, like cold fronts and warm ocean waters, the mountains don’t go away. Basically, all that’s needed is some moist air being driven toward higher elevations. In most cases, the warmer the air, the more water vapor it can “hold”, and therefore deliver. But, as this list clearly shows, the cool, damp air of the Gulf of Alaska is plenty moist to dump tubs of rain (and snow!) onto Alaska’s southern mountains. Each of the listed Alaskan stations sits along Alaska’s southern coast, where the ocean, the mountains, and a persistent low-pressure feature – the “Alaskan low” – work together to produce prolific rainmaking.

The dry side of the table underscores the corollary of the first point: the leeward reaches of mountain ranges tend to be much drier than the windward side. Many of the dry stations sit just east of a significant mountain range. After the moisture is wrung out on the windward side, the air will warm as it descends. This warming brings the air out of saturation – it is plenty capable of “holding” the remaining water vapor – which means precipitation doesn’t happen in most situations.

It’s also worth noting, looking across these lists, that the wet stations are comfortably in the far northern regions of the country. And many of the dry stations, especially those that aren’t obviously in the “rain shadow” of a mountain range, are at sub-tropical latitudes. The world’s major deserts sit at around 25 to 30 degrees latitude. The exceptions to the above are: 1) Barrow, Alaska, which is so far north and so cold, that there’s just not a great deal of precipitation, and 2) Hilo, Hawaii, which is so far south that it’s tropical. Hilo also sits on the east side of a major summit, the windward side in the tropics, where the prevailing winds are easterly. Or, to sum it up in a truism: all else being equal, subtropical latitudes tend dry.

The following lists show the places with the most, and the least, days per year with precipitation.

Places with the most frequent precipitation
1 Hilo Int’l Airport, HI 272.1 days a year
2 Cold Bay Airport, AK 249.3 days a year
3 Yakutat State Airport, AK 240.1 days a year
4 Sitka Airport, AK 235.6 days a year
5 Ketchikan Int’l Airport, AK 233.9 days a year
6 Annette Island Airport, AK 231 days a year
7 Juneau Int’l Airport, AK 229.8 days a year
8 Cordova | M.K. Smith Airport, AK 219.9 days a year
9 Mt. Washington, NH 210.4 days a year
10 Quillayute State Airport, WA 206.3
 
Places with the least frequent precipitation
1 Yuma Airport, AZ 17.9 days a year
2 Las Vegas | McCarran Airport, NV 26.5 days a year
3 Bishop Airport, CA 27.6 days a year
4 Lancaster |William J. Fox Field, CA 28.8 days a year
5 Mercury |  Desert Rock Airport, NV 32.1 days a year
6 Long Beach |Daugherty Field, CA 35.2 days a year
7 Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, CA 36.5 days a year
8 Phoenix | Sky Harbor Int’l Airport, AZ 36.6
9 Sandberg, CA 37.7 days a year
10 Bakersfield Airport, CA 39.2 days a year

What do these lists tell us? They tell us that the places that get the most and least precipitation per year also get the most and fewest days with precipitation. Let’s not overthink this.

Snowfall
Finally, the ten snowiest places in the United States:

1 Valdez, AK 326.3"
2 Mt. Washington, NH 281.2"
3 Hancock | Houghton County Airport, MI 207.7"
4 Yakutat State Airport, AK 143.4"
5 Talkeetna Airport, AK 137.1"
6 Syracuse | Hancock Int’l Airport, NY 123.8"
7 Sault Ste. Marie | Sanderson Field, MI 120.4"
8 Caribou Municipal Airport, ME 108.7"
9 Flagstaff | Pulliam Airport, AZ 101.7"
10 Traverse City | Cherry Capital Airport, MI 101.4"

What does this list tell us? As you’d expect, the more northern and higher-elevation places make the list. But the influence of the Great Lakes really pops in this list. Large, relatively warm bodies of water, especially in the early winter, can juice snow-making storms with even more moisture and atmospheric instability. Being downwind of a Great Lake means you experience this early and often in the winter.  Or, presented as a truism: The Great Lakes Make Great Flakes.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

When the Big One finally hits and 1/2 of California falls into the ocean, Barstow will be the new surfing hot spot. This point break is what I'm envsioning in the middle of the desert- just on the other side of the Union Pacific railyard.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
All Star
One Bad Hombre
Parko's So Good At Carving I'm Going To Have Him Do My Turkey

THE Surf Report

Break out the 5'10" step-up!

SURF:

Had some fun surf this week. Nothing big, but you could find waves if you did some hunting around the county.

Today we have new NW groundswell filling in with lingering SW for inconsistent shoulder high sets. Tide is super high this morning so it's already shutting down inconsistent surf. Might as well wait until the afternoon for the tide to drop and the NW to fill in more. The weekend then starts to get murky.

The Oregon/California buoy today is showing 20' surf and it will fill in further down here tomorrow into Sunday. The murky part is the big storm hammering the NW Pacific coast today. The tail end sweeps through here tomorrow afternoon through Monday morning and forecast models show 20 mph wind gusts along our beaches. So as the swell builds for us out of the NW- so does the W wind. Sets tomorrow afternoon should be overhead but the wind will make a mess of things. That will last through Sunday. If you like junky surf and a bit of work, then this weekend is for you.

Water temps are mid 60's (and should drop over the weekend once the storm blows through) and tides the next few days are 3' at sunrise, up to 5' mid-morning, down to 0' late afternoon, and up to 4' at sunset.

FORECAST:
After the NW rolls through this weekend, it drops slightly on Monday.

By Tuesday though we have another overhead NW swell showing up AND the weather should be cleaner. That lasts through Wednesday. Winds may also be offshore by Wednesday and that could last through Friday.

After that the Aleutians take a break and we get small SW towards next Thursday. We may also get a small shot of NW around Friday the 21st. And following that is another small waist high+ SW around the 27th of October. All in all some good surf early next week and smaller the 2nd half. Make sure to keep up to date on any developing storms at Twitter/North County Surf.

WEATHER:

Nice weather will be on hiatus the next few days as a potent early season storm rumbles throught the Pacific NW this weekend. The Oregon coast actually had hurricane force winds of 99 mph last night. We'll just get the tail end down here with breezy W winds and maybe a chance of light showers Sunday night. For tomorrow, look for the clouds to stick around most of the day as the winds hit gusts of 20 mph. Look for more of the same Sunday while things start to clear out Monday. By Tuesday, high pressure sets up and we've got amazing weather the 2nd half of next week and offshore winds in the mornings.

BEST BET:
If we're lucky, W winds will hold off just long enough early tomorrow morning to get some semi-clean surf. If not, the solid swell this weekend will be blown out. Next chance is Tuesday with new NW and cleaner conditions.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

If you enjoy surfing, you’ll like the news below. Remember back in elementary school, teachers taught us that the sun won’t last forever and will start to expand slowly in a few hundred million years and the seas will evaporate and the earth will fry. That news scarred me for life (my therapist now has a starting point for my behavior). Good news though: French scientists have found our imminent doom will be pushed back a few hundred million years and the end of the world is now about a billion years away. So have fun surfing this weekend- you got plenty of time. Here’s what the scientists had to say:

The natural increase in solar luminosity (i.e. the suns energy output)-a very slow process unrelated to current climate warming-will cause the Earth's temperatures to rise over the next few hundred million years. This will result in the complete evaporation of the oceans. Devised by French scientists from the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, their model was able to simulate that liquid water will disappear on Earth in approximately one billion years, extending previous estimates by several hundred million years. The work not only improves our understanding of the evolution of our planet but also makes it possible to determine the necessary conditions for the presence of liquid water on other Earth-like planets.

Like most stars, the Sun's luminosity very slowly increases during the course of its existence. It is therefore expected that, due to higher solar radiation, the Earth's climate will become warmer over geological timescales (of the order of hundreds of millions of years), independently of human-induced climate warming, which takes place over decades. This is because the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere rises as the oceans become warmer (the water evaporates faster). However, water vapor is a greenhouse gas that contributes to the warming of the Earth's surface. Scientists therefore predict that runaway climate warming will occur on Earth, causing the oceans to boil and liquid water to disappear from the surface. Another consequence is that the greenhouse effect will enter a runaway state and become unstable, making it impossible to maintain a mild mean temperature of 59 °F on Earth. This phenomenon may explain why Venus, which is a little nearer to the Sun than the Earth, turned into a furnace in the distant past. It also sheds light on the climate of exoplanets.

When might this runaway state occur on Earth? Until now, this was difficult to estimate as the phenomenon had only been investigated using highly simplified astrophysical (one-dimensional) models, which considered the Earth to be uniform and failed to take into account key factors such as the seasons or clouds. Yet the climate models used to predict the climate over the coming decades are not suited to such high temperatures. According to some of these one-dimensional models, the Earth would start to lose all its water to space and turn into a new Venus within a mere 150 million years.

The French scientists now designed a three-dimensional model able to predict how the terrestrial environment would change under the effect of a significant increase in solar flux causing evaporation of liquid water into the atmosphere. According to this sophisticated model, the tipping point should occur when mean solar flux reaches approximately 375 W/m2 (present-day flux is 341 W/m2), with a surface temperature of around 158 °F (about 20 degrees hotter than Death Valley in the summer- so we can all go hide out there if needed) in approximately one billion years. The oceans will then start to boil and the greenhouse effect will increase until it enters a runaway state. This result pushes back earlier predictions for the complete evaporation of the oceans by several hundred million years.

This difference is due to atmospheric circulation: while transporting heat from the equator to the mid-latitudes, it dries these warm regions and reduces the greenhouse effect in the areas where it is most likely to enter a runaway state. Increased solar flux appears to intensify this atmospheric circulation, drying sub-tropical regions even more and stabilizing the climate for several hundred million years before it reaches the point of no return. In addition, this work shows that the parasol effect of clouds, in other words their ability to reflect solar radiation-which helps to cool the present-day climate-tends to decrease over millions of years compared to their greenhouse effect. The parasol effect is therefore likely to contribute to climate warming and destabilization.

These findings can also be used to determine the extent of the habitable zone around the Sun. They show that a planet can be as close as 0.95 astronomical units to a star similar to our Sun (i.e. 5% less than the distance from the Earth to the Sun) before losing all its liquid water. In addition, they demonstrate yet again that a planet does not need to be exactly like the Earth to have oceans. The researchers are now planning to apply this model to extrasolar planets in order to determine which environments could help them retain liquid water.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

There's been a lot of debate in the surf world if Nazare in Portugal is really a big wave spot or not. The knock against it is that the wave doesn't break top to bottom but is rather a slow roller, lessening the danger. My two cents: If I grabbed board, ran down to the beach, and saw this thing in the line-up, my vote would be YES it's a big wave spot. (I would then run back to my car and cry like a baby).

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Larger Than Life
Broke The Charger's Curse
I'm Doing Maneuvers They Haven't Even Named Yet

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Easy like Sunday morning.

SURF:

Had fun surf last weekend from the SW as well as a bit of NW windswell too and most of that died out mid-week. Yesterday we had leftover NW windswell combine with building SW to put us back in chest high waves again. Today we had peaking SW/NW and great weather. Looks like great weather again tomorrow BUT... smaller SW and not much NW for waist high waves and chest high sets. Saturday is great weather again... but not much in the way of surf; maybe waist high. Late Sunday we get a small boost from the SW but only waist high+ again. Best spots in the OC may see chest high waves though. All in all great weather this weekend and rideable waves early tomorrow. No big waves on tap so make sure to relax this weekend and take it easy like Sunday morning.

Water temps are holding in the high 60's (maybe 1 last weekend of trunks and a jacket?) and tides the next few days are 3' at sunrise, up to 4.5' after lunch, and down to 1' at sunset.


FORECAST:

Not much to start the work week but we begin to see a small NW fill in on Tuesday for chest high sets and shoulder high waves in SD. We then get a better NW groundswell on Thursday for shoulder high waves here and head high waves in SD. That may last into Saturday. After that the Pacific goes on hiatus. Make sure to keep up to date on any developing storms at Twitter/North County Surf.

WEATHER:

High pressure is building tonight and we have great beach weather on tap this weekend with light offshores in the AM and temps in the low 80's. High pressure starts to break down early next week and we get cooler temps and night/morning low clouds by mid-week. And no rain in sight. Yet.

BEST BET:
Dying small swell tomorrow or wait until next Thursday with fun NW groundswell.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

There’s been talk over the years that as the earth warms up, certain climates will shift. So as the arid Baja Peninsula warms up, our mild Mediterranean climate here in San Diego will also warm up and turn into Baja. And our mild San Diego climate will shift north to the cooler temperatures of San Francisco. And Seattle will finally dry out as San Francisco’s climate will take up residence! And so on and so on. And by the 23rd century, I predict Santa will be wearing boardshorts at the North Pole.

Regardless, what happens on land may also be mimicked in the ocean. Which may mean our Great Whites would be replaced by Tiger and Bull Sharks. Awesome. The University of Texas reported recently about the shifting fish populations (I guess with the opening of the NLand Surf Park this week in Austin they need to start keeping tabs on these things). Here’s what they had to say:

Scientists have new evidence that coral-reef fish -- who are capable of adapting to warmer temperatures brought about by global climate change -- will probably opt instead to relocate to cooler parts of the ocean.

In experiments using a fish found in coral reefs around the world, the blue-green damselfish, Chromis viridis, researchers found that the fish were capable of adapting to living in water 2-4 degrees Celsius above their normal summer temperatures; however, when given the slightest chance, the fish moved to cooler water.

"When fish have to adapt to increased temperature, there are physical consequences. They may not be able to handles stress, or reproduce, or even grow," said marine scientist Dr. Jacob Johansen from The University of Texas at Austin. "But, when they seek out temperatures that they've evolved to be in over thousands of years, they can mitigate the impact of increasing temperatures and not sacrifice critical physiological processes."

Johansen and fisheries biologists from the University of Copenhagen and James Cook University collaborated on the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology.

Marine fish are faced with a tough decision. The ocean is warming at a faster rate than occurs on land, because oceans operate as sinks -- trapping in the heat. Many ocean fish will need to adapt or move to avoid death.

Most prior research has focused on the capacity for animals to adapt to increasing temperatures, given that animals have adapted to changes in temperature in the past. However, previous adaptations happened at evolutionary timescales, roughly one degree Celsius temperature increase per million years. Current predictions for rising temperature are much greater, with sea surface temperature predicted to increase by 2-4 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century.

Instead of looking into how fish can adapt, the new research took a different approach by asking, what if fish moved? In fact, what if entire ecosystems were capable of moving to the cooler temperatures, towards the poles or in deeper water?

There is already evidence that many coral reef fish and pelagic fish, like tuna, have moved in response to warmer ocean waters. The researchers found evidence that this also might occur with blue-green damselfish, and they stressed the need to investigate more fish species, including commercial fish species that economies rely upon.

"This study shows, that there is a mechanistic explanation for why fish may move, faced with a choice, and now we have a way of testing it," Johansen said.

Picking up and moving may not be the silver bullet for some species, particularly coral reef fish which are dependent on reefs relocating, too. Blue-green damselfish have a very small range, unable to go more than 60 feet in radius from their coral reef home. Corals cannot move pole-ward as fast as the temperature increases are predicted; if fish do not adapt, reducing critical processes like reproduction, they will have to move to deeper waters where living conditions are less than ideal.

In addition, ocean warming does not occur as a steady slide upward on the thermometer. It often occurs with more severe and frequent heating events. It's these transient warming events that are causing the most damage. This has already been shown in the Great Barrier Reef, when an El Niño caused the temperature to rise above the thermal tolerance of the animals, causing a massive fish kill and widespread coral bleaching.

"It's these transient periods that are causing the most damage," Johansen noted.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Now THAT'S a sandbar. Since I discovered it, I'm going to name it in honor of the best surfer in the world and call it 'Mike's Left'.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
The Hottest Thing Going
Invested In Pork Bellies
Best Surfer In The World As Voted By, Um, My Mom