Impatient.
SURF:
Are you the
type of person that on Thanksgiving Day, you sneak in the kitchen and pull a
little piece off the old bird before everyone is served? Or maybe open
a present on Xmas eve? If so, I’ve got an
early holiday treat for you this weekend. But before we get ahead of ourselves,
let’s have a look at the past week.
Not much swell in the water and the water
temps dropped, but darn those sunsets were nice. Today we started to see signs
of new SW and NW filling in on our buoys.
For Friday, look for both swells to
fill in even more for head high sets. As usual, the NW will be bigger in SD and
the SW bigger in OC and here in N county SD we’ll see a combo of the NW/SW. Looks like a good weekend of surf with peaking
NW on Friday, peaking SW on Saturday, and fun leftover chest high+ surf on
Sunday.
Water temps have dropped to the low 60’s and tides this weekend are pretty
mellow: 4’ at sunrise, down to 2’ mid-morning, and up to 4’ again at sunset.
FORECAST:
After the
weekend’s fun waves, the SW lingers for a few more days in the waist to chest
high range.
WEATHER:
Low pressure
is anchored off the Pacific NW and high pressure is sitting off Cabo. So where
does that leave us? Somewhere in-between. That means typical low clouds/fog in
the nights/mornings and temps around 70 at the beaches. No rain is in our
sights yet thanks to La Nina. If anything changes between now and then, make
sure to keep up to date on the waves and weather at Twitter/North County Surf.
BEST BET:
Friday
through Sunday. Another weekend in which the lawn won’t get mowed I guess.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Recently I reported on our feeble hurricane season (http://northcountysurf.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-surf-report-early-edition.html)
and most likely it’s demise due to the building La Nina this past summer into early
fall (http://northcountysurf.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-surf-report-early-edition_21.html).
As our waters continue to cool, I’m pretty confident we won’t see any more
hurricanes before the season ends November 30th (or the rest of 2017
for that matter).
The National Hurricane Center in May predicted 14–20 named storms (in which 16 actually happened), 6–11 hurricanes (of
which 9 happened), and 3–7 major hurricanes (of which 4 happened).
Pretty average by all accounts. And unfortunately, we only had 2 storms with
winds over 125 mph (Fernanda and Kenneth) and they both went due W away from us
resulting in no real surf.
Now winds of 125 mph sounds impressive (category 3
on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale) but how does this season’s Hurricane
Fernanda (Category 4) and Hurricane Kenneth (Category 3) stack up to the
strongest East Pacific Hurricanes of all time? Let’s first have a look at the
Saffir-Simpson Scale:
As far as the strongest storms on record in the East
Pacific (all Category 5’s mind you), here’s the top 10:
10. Ioke in 2006: 160 mph winds
9. Hernan in 2002: 160 mph winds
8. Elida in 2002: 160mph winds
7. Guillermo in 1997: 160mph
winds
6. Gilma in 1994: 160mph winds
5. Ava in 1973: 160 mph winds
4. Kenna in 2002: 165 mph winds
3. Rick in 2009: 180 mph winds
2. Linda in 1997: 185 mph winds
1. Patricia in 2015: A whopping 215
mph winds (For more on Patricia, check it out here).
The
Saffir-Simpson scale basically is in 20 mph increments. Since we normally don’t
have storms over 156 mph (Category 5), it would be foolish to make a scale that
was Category 6, Category 10, Category 20 and so on. BUT… technically Hurricane
Linda had peak winds of 185 mph (Category 6?) and Patricia was 215 mph
(Category 7 maybe?). Crazy. What should also be noted is that out of the top 10
storms, 8 of them occured in the last 20 years (and Gilma would have been 9 but
was in 1994). One theory of course is the warming earth is fueling the
hurricanes. If that’s the case- fine with me- as long as the storms don’t hit
anybody…
PIC OF THE
WEEK:
Besides deep sea diving in my personal sub, my other
hobby is photography while hang gliding. Amazing considering that I’m claustrophobic,
afraid of heights, and creeped out by shutterbugs.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Like A Boss
Only Deal In
Bitcoin, Black Cards, And Doubloons
For Safety
Reasons, I Wear My Inflatable Vest Now From 2’-20’
