Lots of wind, not many waves.
SURF:
Not exactly the greatest week of surf but there were little
chest high waves if you timed your session right. Last night we had lots of WNW
wind as another cold front exited our region and today were left with chest
high waves and cleaner conditions. Late in the day the swells continue to drop
with a new cold front moving in.
Saturday is a mess but the NW windswell starts
to pick up again for shoulder high sets. If things can clean up by Sunday, we
should have dying chest high waves again from the NW.
Water temps are holding
at 58 and the tides this weekend are 3’ at sunrise, up to 5’ mid-morning, down
to 0’ late afternoon, and up to 2’ at sunset. Make sure to keep up to date on
the waves and weather at Twitter/North County Surf!
FORECAST:
The work (or school) week starts off slow with just waist
high+ NW/SW groundswell.
That lasts through Wednesday morning before a new WNW
groundswell/windswell fills in. By Thursday we have head high sets- but bumpy
conditions from a new cold front. All in all some hit and miss conditions as we
head into spring on March 20th. Where the heck did our winter go?!
For
next weekend and beyond forecast charts show some disorganized storms in the
Aleutians and off Antarctica but nothing concrete- or impressive.
WEATHER:
Just light showers off and on the past week- and that will
continue this weekend. We have a mild start today then a weak cold front comes
through later that lasts through Saturday. At most we should receive is ½” of
rain. Mild sunny weather returns early in the week then models diverge after
that: either a solid storm arrives by Thursday or just a chance of more showers.
Since we’ve only had showers the past few weeks- my bet is showers again late
next week.
BEST BET:
In-between storms: Best
to get it early on Friday (before the next cold front knocks on our door) with
leftover SW/NW, Sunday morning with dying NW windswell and clearing conditions,
or late next Wednesday with new NW before- you guessed it- the next storm
arrives Thursday.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Know what my
kids call sea lions? Dogs of the sea. They bark, like to play, and might bite
your foot if you’re not watching. (And for future reference- my kids also call
seagulls Rats of the Beach. Noisy, leave droppings all over, and they’ll take
your food if you’re not watching). Anyway, looks like our California sea lions
have fully rebounded under the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act
(MMPA), with their population on the West Coast healthy and robust. Their
recovery over the past several decades reflects an important success for the
MMPA. The landmark 1972 legislation recognized marine mammals as a central
element of their ocean ecosystems, setting population goals based on levels
that would contribute to the health and stability of those ecosystems.
"The
population has basically come into balance with its environment," said co-author
Sharon Melin, a research biologist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center who
has tracked sea lion numbers in Southern California's Channel Islands for
years. "The marine environment is always changing, and their population is
at a point where it responds very quickly to changes in the environment."
Scientists
combined the results of sea lion pup counts in the Channel Islands, aerial
surveys of sea lion rookeries, survival rates and other information to
reconstruct the growth of the sea lion population from 1975 to 2014. They gained
enough insight into the dynamics of the population to fill in gaps from a few
years with little data.
Market hunting,
bounties, pollutants such as DDT and other forces depressed sea lion numbers in
the middle of the last century. The new study found that the species then rose
from less than 90,000 animals in 1975 to an estimated 281,450 in 2008, which
was roughly the carrying capacity for sea lions in the California Current
Ecosystem at that time. It then fluctuated around that level, reaching a high
of 306,220 in 2012 before declining below the carrying capacity in the years
since as ocean conditions changed.
The researchers
found sea lion numbers very sensitive to environmental changes, especially
changes in ocean temperatures that affect their prey. Their models based on
past population shifts predict that an increase of 1 degree C in sea surface
temperature off the West Coast will reduce sea lion population growth to zero,
while an increase of 2 degrees will lead to a 7 percent decline in the population.
"When the
California Current is not productive, they respond pretty fast and
dramatically," Melin said. "They're out there in the ocean sampling
it all the time. That makes them a very powerful indicator of what's happening
in the marine environment."
Marine
conditions since 2012 have illustrated that. An unusual marine heat wave off
the West Coast known as "the blob" (http://northcountysurf.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-surf-report.html) combined with an El Niño climate pattern
reduced pup production and survival, with thousands of malnourished pups
stranding on Southern California beaches. NOAA Fisheries declared the elevated
number of deaths an Unusual Mortality Event in 2013. The sea lion population
dropped to just over 250,000 in 2013 and 2014.
"This is
not just a story about continued growth of the population," DeLong said.
"These last several years have brought new environmental stresses to the
California Current, and we've seen that reflected by the sea lions."
Understanding
the relationship between sea lion numbers and the environment can help
scientists detect signals of coming change. Wildlife managers can then use that
information to anticipate and prepare for shifts in the ecosystem and its
inhabitants. "It helps us to understand the factors driving this
population, because we can incorporate them into management decisions,"
said Chris Yates, Assistant Regional Administrator for Protected Resources in
NOAA Fisheries' West Coast Region.
The general
recovery of sea lion numbers has had consequences though on the West Coast,
including conflicts with people over beach access where sea lions haul out and
concern about sea lion predation on threatened and endangered salmon and
steelhead in the Northwest. NOAA Fisheries has authorized Oregon, Washington
and Idaho to remove individually identifiable sea lions near the Columbia
River's Bonneville Dam that have been spotted repeatedly preying on fish
protected under the Endangered Species Act.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Question: What do you get when you add a legendary point
break (Malibu) with a legendary storm (Hurricane Marie)? Answer: Legendary
swell (with 250 of your best friends). I’m pretty sure this is what Randy
Newman had in mind when he wrote ‘I Love L.A.’
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
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