The anticipation is killing me!
SURF:
Had a little SW earlier in the week then some NW windswell today, which has already passed it's peak. Good news is that's there's surf coming (finally). Bad news is that it's not this weekend. High pressure is in control today, creating offshore Santa Ana winds, but there's nothing in the water to ride.
Look for mainly knee high surf this weekend with waist high sets. If you are dying to get out in the water and paddle around, make sure to hit it early before strong onshores kick in by mid-day. As far as water temps go, looks like we're starting our slow slide towards winter as temps are now in the 65-67 degree range. But with the Santa Ana condition today, air temps will at least be close to 80- with similar temps Sunday. So get out there and hang at the beach this weekend! And here's the sun and tides for the next few days:
- Sunrise: 6:50 AM
- Sunset: 6:20 PM
- 4’ at sunrise
- 5’ mid-morning
- 1' mid-afternoon
- 3' at sunset
FORECAST:
Patience is a virtue. Monday starts off small THEN we start to see surf late Tuesday into Monday.
First up is a late season tropical storm which models show forming this weekend. That will give us fun chest high+ surf late Tuesday which will be met with NW windswell. That will hold into Wednesday with less consistent chest high surf on Thursday.
On it's heels is our first NW of the season from a storm also taking shape this weekend off the Aleutians. Friday should have chest high surf again with shoulder high sets in SD. Saturday will have shoulder high sets.
Charts also show a late season storm off Antarctica this weekend which will send shoulder high sets our way for Sunday into Monday with slightly bigger sets in the OC. In summary: Tropical surf, Southern Hemi swell, and Aleutian juice. When it rains, it pours. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf for updates!
BEST BET:
2nd half of next week, everywhere in Southern California.
WEATHER:
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about the red flag warnings today from the National Weather Service. Our 1st real Santa Ana wind event of the season is upon us and fortunately, should only last 1 day, with temps near 80 along the coast. Saturday will have lighter winds and great beach weather with temps in the mid-70's and plenty of sun. Sunday looks nice too but the low clouds may return and last into much of next week. Temps at the beaches though will still be in the low 70's.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
There's been a lot written the past 40 years or so about man's inadvertent (or deliberate depending on who you ask) slow destruction of our environment, and in particular, the oceans. Each year, as humans emit billions of metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, nearly a third of the emissions ends up in the ocean, changing the chemical balance of the water. And as the climate changes, the ocean is also absorbing almost all of the Earth’s extra heat, melting ice that creates sea level rise, making the water uninhabitable for marine life, and changing the planet’s weather patterns. Fast Company reported this week that a new report from the IPCC, the UN panel that studies climate change, lays out exactly what’s at stake for the ocean as a result—and for humans, all of whom rely on the ocean either directly or indirectly. Here's what they had to say:
“What comes out of this report is that it’s going to hit us in so many ways,” says Mark Spalding, senior marine scientist for The Nature Conservancy, one of the organizations that contributed to the report. The litany of potential disasters from a changing ocean is horrifying: As the warming water melts ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the sea level rises each year, putting hundreds of millions of people who live in low-lying coastal areas at risk of flooding. A warmer ocean supercharges hurricanes. Marine heatwaves can boost toxic algae and close fisheries. As the water absorbs CO2, it becomes more acidic, posing another threat to coral reefs. And all these impacts can exacerbate each other—coral reefs, for example, “play the role of a sea wall,” says Spalding. “They sit offshore like a barrier and they break waves before the waves get to land.” As storms get stronger, this natural protection is being lost at the same time.
“What comes out of this report is that it’s going to hit us in so many ways,” says Mark Spalding, senior marine scientist for The Nature Conservancy, one of the organizations that contributed to the report. The litany of potential disasters from a changing ocean is horrifying: As the warming water melts ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the sea level rises each year, putting hundreds of millions of people who live in low-lying coastal areas at risk of flooding. A warmer ocean supercharges hurricanes. Marine heatwaves can boost toxic algae and close fisheries. As the water absorbs CO2, it becomes more acidic, posing another threat to coral reefs. And all these impacts can exacerbate each other—coral reefs, for example, “play the role of a sea wall,” says Spalding. “They sit offshore like a barrier and they break waves before the waves get to land.” As storms get stronger, this natural protection is being lost at the same time.
For marine ecosystems, these threats are piling up on top of other human impacts. “A lot of the other damage we’ve done to habitats is making the threat of climate change worse,” he says. “We overfish, we damage coral reefs, we pollute. This idea that humans are adding to the problem comes out quite clearly in this report. The flip side to that is that we can do something about it. If we can reduce some of these parallel problems, we can at least buy ourselves some time to deal with the climate change piece of this.” The Nature Conservancy, for example, is working on projects to restore coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, as in a project in the Caribbean that created an insurance policy for coral reefs; hotels in the area pay a premium each month so that if a storm hits, the funding can immediately be used to rebuild the reefs to protect the hotels. Other projects are restoring mangroves, a coastal ecosystem that is uniquely good at sucking carbon from the air.
The biggest change that needs to happen, of course, is a move to a zero-carbon economy. “What happens depends on what decisions we make now and in the next few years,” says Spalding. “Do we follow a business-as-usual path? Or do we really knock it down and try to aim for [warming of just] 1.5 degrees?” The difference between limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, instead of 2 degrees, might sound small. But it’s actually huge. “It’s startlingly different between one and the other. The lowest emission scenario is still talking about just one meter of sea level rise in a couple of hundred years’ time. With a high-emissions scenario, we’re talking about multiple meters of sea level rise, which frankly is curtains for entire nations—even wealthy nations and cities that are on the coast.”
The biggest change that needs to happen, of course, is a move to a zero-carbon economy. “What happens depends on what decisions we make now and in the next few years,” says Spalding. “Do we follow a business-as-usual path? Or do we really knock it down and try to aim for [warming of just] 1.5 degrees?” The difference between limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, instead of 2 degrees, might sound small. But it’s actually huge. “It’s startlingly different between one and the other. The lowest emission scenario is still talking about just one meter of sea level rise in a couple of hundred years’ time. With a high-emissions scenario, we’re talking about multiple meters of sea level rise, which frankly is curtains for entire nations—even wealthy nations and cities that are on the coast.”
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Random empty surf spot #GTR45-A. I dare you to find it. And if you do? Congrats! You get to surf this spot all to yourself. I think that's fair.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
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