Let's try this again. Until I see the sun.
SURF:
I thought for SURE we'd see a little bit of sun last weekend. But alas it was not to be. With our cool water temps (cool being a relative term at 65 degrees vs. 70 during the '15 and '16 El Ninos), it hasn't been warm enough to keep the clouds and fog at bay. So let's try this again... models are hinting at less clouds at the beach this weekend. Still cool weather, but maybe a chance of sun by mid-day.
FORECAST:
The small but building NW over the weekend peaks Monday afternoon with shoulder high sets- bigger towards SD. That lasts into Tuesday morning.
WEATHER:
As mentioned above, the clouds should dissipate earlier this weekend (should being a relative word) and we may have sun mid-day at our beaches. For next week, the sun will be on and off again with cool conditions. Models show high pressure trying to exert itself next weekend for a slight warm up and more consistent sunshine.
BEST BET:
Monday with peaking NW windswell or next Thursday with better combo swell.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
The San Diego Union Tribune reported this week that San Diego’s Rose Canyon fault produces powerful earthquakes more frequently than once believed, (but don’t worry- a major temblor isn’t imminent), according to researchers from San Diego State University.
SDSU scientists who studied the part of the fault located in the Old Town neighborhood determined that the system — which before 1990 was thought to be inactive — generates a magnitude 6.5 to 6.8 earthquake about once every 700 years.
Seismologist Tom Rockwell said earlier analysis indicated that such quakes occur every 1,000 to 1,500 years on the 40 mile-long fault, which extends from San Diego Bay through Old Town and across Mission Valley, then up Rose Canyon through Mt. Soledad and finally heading offshore at La Jolla. In its offshore portion, the fault is known to extend as far north as Oceanside.
“A powerful quake in the mid- to upper 6's could cause liquefaction around San Diego and Mission bays and locally in Mission Valley, and cause the land to be offset across the fault, which would damage buildings,” said Rockwell, one of California’s most experienced seismologists. Drake Singleton, his doctoral student, said: “We could see the history of ruptures in the soil of Old Town, and that told the story.” The research team said it also found evidence at a dig site in Old Town that the Rose Canyon fault has produced at least two additional quakes in the magnitude 5.0 to 6.0 range in recent centuries — shaking referred to as background seismicity. “A 6.0 quake likely wouldn’t break the surface of the ground, but it could cause liquefaction,” said Rockwell, who has dug trenches on faults across Southern California. Even so, Singleton’s work shows that the 1862 earthquake in San Diego, estimated at magnitude 6, did produce minor ground breakage in Old Town that wasn’t previously known.
Last fall, Singleton and Rockwell dug a 160-foot long, 3-foot wide trench on the Presidio Hills Golf Course and spent months studying the orange-gray sediment for traces of past quakes. The effort led them to discover that a major quake had occurred before the founding of Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1769. “If we had dug in a place where there were no faults, the sediment wouldn’t be very disrupted at all,” Singleton said. “But in the Rose Canyon trench, things are very chaotic. You can see the past.
The new finding comes two months after UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography released a study saying that offshore segments of the Rose Canyon and Newport-Inglewood faults could rupture and produce a 7.3 quake, damaging large areas of the Southern California coastline. The paper added to long held beliefs by scientists that California’s offshore faults can be as perilous as those that are on shore.
So what if there was a large earthquake along our coastline? The obvious answer is a chance of a damaging tsunami and structural damage to our buildings. One little known consequence though is that certain surf breaks may be enhanced- or destroyed- depending if the land gets lifted as a result from the earthquake. This happened in Costa Rica after an earthquake on the Caribbean side in 1991. Some surf spots in the area -- which were already shallow and gnarly -- were pushed up and made dry. It rearranged the whole coastline.
Another famous incident was a result of the Nias earthquake in 2009. As reported by Australia’s Track Magazine: “The change in the reef at Lagundri Bay was quite obvious. Previously at 4’-6’, the wave broke but it was a tease, a brief gorgeous face that left you wanting more as the wall rapidly dissipated after your first turn. Any smaller than head high and it didn’t break on the outside at all. Now the wave at this size was at least twice as long, and even offered barrels, although they are very tide dependent. The lineup seems more complex than it used to be, with a bit more variability from wave to wave. It is definitely an improvement at this size. It is hard to imagine it any better at six-foot-plus than the old reef was. With the reef now over a 3’ higher than before, so far it seems to have paid off. The same sadly can’t be said for the best waves in the Hinakos, the outer islands off west Nias. Ex-classic left, Asu is severely compromised, and Bawa, formerly an epic and perfect mimic of small Sunset, as well as a swell magnet, is wrecked.”
For us in Southern California, I would assume reef breaks like Windansea and Seaside would be enhanced as high tide would be meaningless with shallower reefs. But reefs that are already shallow- like Big Rock- may become obsolete. Hopefully ‘The Big One’ won’t hit and we won’t have to find out.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
From this angle, the Wedge looks almost rideable. But we know better.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
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