I'm THIS close to activating the Emergency Boardriding System...
SURF:
Finally some fun surf this week- with pesky afternoon NW winds- but I'll take it considering how small it's been the past 2 months. Early in the week we had fun SW swell and that was met by fun NW yesterday. Best spots had shoulder high sets and it was good to get off the groveller! For tomorrow morning, we have leftover SW/NW with chest high sets but by the afternoon we see signs of a new, good, NW swell.
By Saturday morning we have head high sets here in north county SD and maybe an overhead set in south SD. And if that's not good enough, we've got a slight Santa Ana this weekend so conditions should be great through mid-morning. Sunday backs off slightly with shoulder high sets and head high waves in SD. Along with great weather again. All in all a fun weekend. Water temps are still in the low to mid-60's and here's what going on with the tides and sun this weekend:
- Sunrise and sunset are:
- 6:18 AM
- 4:47 PM
- And tides this weekend are:
- 3' at sunrise
- 5.5' mid morning
- 0' at sunset
FORECAST:
Looks like the storm track is finally behaving but the reason I'm not activating the Emergency Boardriding System (EBS) yet is that there's a lot of variables right now. But before I get ahead of myself, let's take a look at early in the upcoming week: Monday will have leftover chest high NW swell and Tuesday starts to pick back up again from the NW with shoulder high sets late in the day. The fly in the ointment? We may have our first chance of showers Tuesday evening into Thursday morning. As that potential storm moves down the coast, the waves/weather will pick up along with it.
Forecast charts are showing the potential for overhead storm surf on Wednesday.
There's also some fun chest high late season SW swell headed our way on Wednesday too but the storm will make a mess of it. Thursday will be a transition day with leftover head high NW/SW and next Friday the 22nd may be clean with chest to shoulder high NW.
And if the models are correct, we may get a solid overhead WNW next weekend. BUT... who knows what the weather will be like now that the storm track looks to be lowering. So now you know my dilema with the EBS- lots of surf coming but conditions may be questionable. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.
BEST BET:
Saturday with fun NW and great weather. Or next Saturday with bigger NW and ??? weather.
WEATHER:
Looks like the fog/wind is going away as high pressure is setting up shop this weekend. We'll have more sun tomorrow and lots of sun this weekend with temps in the high 70's. And wouldn't you know it, everything gets thrown out the window by Tuesday as the weather models show rain showers by Wednesday and lasting into Thursday. Depending if high pressure builds behind the storm, we could get nice weather next weekend or another shot of rain. I'm hoping for sunny skies of course if that solid swell arrives next Saturday...
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Remember that weird and unusually warm pool of water off the west coast a few years ago? The one that scientists called 'The Blob' (https://northcountysurf.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-surf-report.html)? Well, IT'S BAAAAACK. Is this thing El Nino related? Is it Global Warming related? Is it Godzilla related?! I'll let the NOAA experts explain:
The Pacific Ocean is throwing a bit of a temper tantrum these days, but it’s not where you think it might be. Often we focus on the tropical Pacific Ocean because it’s where ENSO takes center stage, but currently temperature departures across the Tropics are pretty blah. Instead, for the past few months, it’s the North Pacific Ocean that pops out at you—a gigantic red sore that covers much of the eastern basin.
The technical term is a Marine Heatwave. Marine heatwaves are considered prolonged, large-scale warm water events. Back in 2014-16, people started calling a very prominent North Pacific marine heatwave THE BLOB. Now, some people are saying this current event could be a return of the Blob. Blob is fun to say and simply rolls off the tongue, so we understand why it’s caught on.
BUT! The problem is “Blob” is not that useful of a description. There’s no single fixed Blob. It would be like if we called every single hurricane, “Hurricane Dave.” Obviously hurricanes, like marine heatwaves, don’t always occur in the same place, at the same time, have the same magnitude, or even have the same areal coverage. In fact, an El Niño can result in conditions that would be considered a marine heatwave in the Tropics, but we would not call that area of warmth a “Blob.”
Marine heatwaves can be a bit tricky to categorize because, like most phenomena in weather and climate, there are shades of grey. While marine heatwaves can be defined by many different physical properties (e.g. size, intensity, duration), there are no fixed set of impacts that will always result. At this point, it is too early to say if this heatwave might have major impacts on marine life and fisheries the way the last one did.
The experts at NOAA (Michael Alexander at NOAA Earth Systems Research Lab and Michael Jacox and Nate Mantua, who are with NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center) have a lot of great information to share:
Q: So far, how different is the current marine heatwave (Blob Redux) from the one we saw in 2014-16 (The Original Blob)?
Alexander: Marine heatwaves are usually identified by temperatures at the sea surface, which can be measured by satellites. Based on sea surface temperatures, the general pattern of the current heatwave does resemble the Original Blob. However, generally, it is important to determine how deep the temperature anomalies (how much warmer or colder the temperature is relative to average) extend into the ocean. As Nate points out below, these anomalies are just near the surface off the US West Coast, so strong storms, which often begin this time of year, can quickly wipe out a heatwave. In fact, we may have just started seeing this.
Mantua: The biggest differences so far are in the depth and duration of the two events. The Original Blob lasted for multiple years and the warming eventually extended to more than 300 meters (~1,000 feet) below the surface across much of the Northeast Pacific. In contrast, the current event has been with us for only a few months, and the extreme warming is confined to the top 30 to 50 meters (~100-150 feet).
Q: Around the time the marine heatwave emerged in the North Pacific Ocean in 2014, there was an El Niño Watch. How significant is ENSO in helping fuel marine heatwaves (or vice versa)?
Alexander: The 2014 marine heatwave (Original Blob) started in the northeast Pacific. Recent studies suggest that air-sea interactions allow ocean temperature anomalies near Hawaii to move towards the equator. When warm temperature anomalies, including marine heatwaves, reach the equator they enhance the chance of an El Niño event in the following year. So the Blob may have contributed to the strong El Nino event that occurred in 2015-16.
While El Niño events occur in the tropical Pacific they influence the ocean and atmosphere in the North Pacific including sea surface temperatures. Generally, the winds are from the southwest near the US West Coast during El Niño which warms the underlying ocean, while ocean processes push the deeper cold water farther down, warming a very narrow region right near the coast. A full blown El Niño did not happen in 2014 but one did in the following winter, which likely contributed to the continuation of the marine heatwave when it was strongest near the West Coast.
Jacox: In general, El Niño is a very prevalent cause of the marine heatwaves in much of the Pacific. Off the U.S. West Coast, El Niño events tend to produce warming by changing the wind patterns that typically cool the coastal ocean, and through an “oceanic teleconnection” where coastal trapped waves propagate northward along the North American west coast. The Original Blob wasn’t caused by El Niño, but the tropical warmth during the 2014-15 winter likely helped that heatwave persist and then the strong 2015-16 El Niño contributed to the extended warming as well.
Mantua: Georgia Tech Professor Emanuel Di Lorenzo and I published a study showing that the evolution and persistence of the Original Blob involved long-distance teleconnections between the North Pacific and Tropical Pacific that involved two flavors of El Nino. As Mike J. points out, the initial warming off the coast of the Pacific Northwest that first earned the “Blob” label wasn’t caused by El Niño. Instead, the atmospheric forcing that started The Blob in winter 2013/14 also contributed to the tropical warming in 2014, which persisted into 2015.
Q: There are research studies that indicate that that marine heatwaves will become more frequent with climate change. How certain is this? Could there be a human-caused thumbprint in recent events?
Alexander: Most of the ocean has warmed over the past 50 years. This warming is projected to continue through the 21stcentury, especially off the northeast US coast. Nearly all computer model simulations of the future indicate the oceans will warm. So relative to the present, marine heatwaves will become more frequent. However, if one thinks of a heatwave as a short-term event relative to the mean temperature at that time, the frequency of marine heat could stay about the same but just happen in an overall warmer climate.
Jacox: What those studies show is that in a warming ocean, historical temperature thresholds will be exceeded more often. In other words, temperatures we currently consider extreme will become more common. But that doesn’t mean marine heatwaves will necessarily change. One could think of it like sea level rise – just because the water gets higher doesn’t mean the waves are getting bigger. How marine heatwaves will change relative to the increasingly warmer temperatures is still an open question, and the answer will likely be different in different parts of the ocean. For marine species, both the warmer temperature and future marine heatwaves will be important. Their relative and combined impacts will vary among species depending on their exposure to warmer temperatures, their sensitivities, and their adaptive capacity.
Q: Perhaps the most important question of all: If you got the Blob, Polar Vortex, and Godzilla El Niño into the ring, which one would win?
Alexander: My dog, which can eat just about anything and drink vast quantities of warm water.
Jacox: Trick question, it turned out that the Blob and Godzilla El Niño were on the same team.
Mantua: I’m with Mike and Mike on this one.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
The upside to Global Warming (if there is one)- in 20 year we'll be able to surf this spot in trunks!
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Cheeky
People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive (Runner-Up)
Bought Lopez's House At Pipe So I Could Walk Out The Backdoor And Backdoor The Barrel At Backdoor
