THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Sorry I jinxed the June Gloom. Owe you one. 

SURF:

After I had said last week it was nice to not see June Gloom this month... June Gloom hit back. My apologies. I'll make it up to you though by flipping the switch on the Emergency Boardriding System! We cool? First up though is Friday morning as we'll have a 0' low tide in the AM, no surf, and June Gloom again. So let's just write that off. 

We then have new SW starting to fill in late in the day for waist high surf. On Saturday, the SW fills in a little more for chest high sets. On Sunday... a little more SW for chest high+ surf (notice a trend here)? Still no sun though at the beaches- until late next week. So until then, wait for the surf to pick up late in the weekend and forget about working on that tan. As far as the sun/water temps/tides go, here's what you need to know:

• Sunrise and sunset:
• 5:43 AM sunrise  
• 8:01 PM sunset 
• If you didn't notice, the days are getting shorter. (Last weekend was 14 hours and 20 minutes of sunlight. This weekend? 14 hours and 18 minutes. Trust me- it's noticeable). 

• With the lack of sun and/or a heat wave along the coast, water temps are hovering around 67. 

• And tides are a roller coaster this weekend:
• 2' at sunrise
• 0' mid-morning
• 4.5' mid-afternoon
• 3' at sunset

FORECAST:

So here's where the Emergency Boardriding System comes in: That SW swell filling in over the weekend? It fills in more on Monday along with new NW windswell. Look for head high+ surf at the best combo spots. That holds on Tuesday morning and slowly subsides with shoulder high sets on Wednesday. The only caveat is that low pressure system up N (the one making the NW windswell) which may deepen the marine layer even more and give us a touch more SW winds. Then the good stuff starts (like the fun surf earlier in the week isn't good enough). 

Forecast charts show a complex SOLID storm off Antarctica this weekend which would give us chest high surf on the afternoon of the 4th, overhead sets by Sunday, another round by Tuesday, and winding down with shoulder high sets by the 9th of July (6 days of surf!) due to this complex storm forming and reforming. My apologies in advance to the lifeguards who have to work the 4th of July weekend. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

BEST BET:

Monday/Tuesday with good SW/NW but cloudy conditions. Or the 4th of July weekend and beyond when the fireworks start (I know, bad pun). 

WEATHER:

The good news about June Gloom? It's keeping the crowds away from the beaches. The bad news? Looks like it may be gone by the 4th of July weekend and social distancing will be a thing of the past. So until then, look for the clouds to hang around the beaches this weekend, SW winds about 10 mph in the afternoons, and air temps in the high 60's. For early next week, the low pressure system mentioned above will deepen the marine layer (with drizzle even possible) and SW winds to blow in the 15 mph range. High pressure hopefully sets up the 2nd half of next week and I'm looking forward to seeing the sun on the 4th. 

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

As reported in last week's THE Surf Report, I spoke about California being an amazing place and that has nothing to do with the diversity of the surf. I'm talking about Death Valley being 120 and the Sierra's being in the 40's- all within a span of 12 hours and a hundred miles. And as you know, here at the coast, it can be almost as extreme due to June Gloom. Most people of course associate June with summertime; sunshine and warm temperatures. And for much of the country, this is typically the weather that occurs in summer's first month. But that isn't the case for parts of the California coast. Here's the Weather Channel to explain:

The culprit along the Golden State's coast is a bank of low clouds and fog that develops during the morning hours, and usually mixes out and erodes during the midday or early in the afternoon. Therefore, it's best to sleep in and wait until the afternoon to head to Southern California's beaches, especially in early summer.
The fog is so common during May and June that it's been aptly named May Gray and June Gloom. San Francisco even has a mascot for it Karl the Fog. (not too catchy)

Why Is It So Foggy in Summer?

The source of the fog is from the marine layer – a shallow layer of clouds that forms over cold air. The cold air comes from the chilly ocean current, which brings cold air from the Gulf of Alaska southward along the West Coast. Typically, this cold air remains off the coast, but as we enter the summer season, intense heating of inland areas, such as the Central Valley and Mojave Desert, sets up a broad area of low pressure known as a thermal low. With relatively higher pressure over the Pacific Ocean, a pressure gradient develops and pushes the cooler and more humid ocean air inland. If this marine layer is deep and moist enough, low clouds and fog are the result.

"It's worth pointing out that most locations away from the coast, especially more than 10 miles or so inland, do not see nearly the impact as locations along the immediate coast," sys the National Weather Service (NWS). "Conversely, the SoCal beaches will see even less sunshine, on average, than the airport location." The NWS added that May features only 59 percent of possible sunshine and only 58 percent of possible sunshine occurs in June, based on averages at San Diego International Airport.

The marine layer doesn't make much inland progress because inland air is warmer and mixes as it heats up during the day. Even the higher terrain along the coast can be significantly warmer than elevations a few thousand feet lower and closer to the coast. This is because the summertime sun still brings significant heating to much of the atmosphere, but cannot mix down to the chilly Pacific Ocean. This creates an inversion, or an upside-down temperature pattern, in the lower layers of the atmosphere.

Usually, temperatures decrease as you go up higher in the atmosphere, but with the cold Pacific air near the ground and the warm summer sun trying to reach the ground, temperatures increase with height along the California coast. This means mountain peaks can be 20 to 30 degrees warmer than the coast just a few miles away. Farther north, in the San Francisco Bay Area, low clouds and fog are also common in the morning, but strong winds through the Golden Gate Bridge typically mix out the marine layer by the afternoon.

A common sight along the California coast in spring and summer is a coastal eddy, in which the low stratus cloud deck takes on the shape of a hurricane.
"We see them on a regular basis," Jan Null, a Bay Area-based certified consulting meteorologist and former lead forecaster at the NWS in Monterey, California, told weather.com. "During the summer, we'll see at least one a week if there's a stratus field."

April through September is when these types of eddies are very common along the coast of California, the NWS-Monterey said. (And based on my personal observations, June Gloom should be gone by early August). 

PIC OF THE WEEK:

It's amazing to think that as a kid, I would see photos like this and believe it was unrideable. Until guys like Mason came along that is. 

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

In High Demand

Pledging Either Delta Tau Chi, Lambda Epsilon Omega, or Lambda Lambda Lambda

Surfing's Not A Sport, It's A Way Of Life, You Know, A Hobby. 

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

So close to summer I can taste it. 

SURF:

Hope you got some fun waves this week. 

Nothing big but a little SW groundswell, a little NW windswell, water in the high 60's, afternoon sunshine, and typical afternoon sea breezes felt like a precursor to summer. 

Not the biggest this weekend but plenty fun as we have a new SW filling in tomorrow for chest high+ sets.. Clouds should be slow to burn off Friday/Saturday and a little more sun for the beaches by Sunday. As far as the sun/water temps/tides go, here's what you need to know:

• Sunrise and sunset on the summer solstice (June 20th) are:
• 5:40 AM sunrise  
• 8:00 PM sunset 
• And on June 21st, the days will start getting shorter until December 20th!

• Water temps are holding in the high 60's which is average for this time of the year (El Nino, where art thou?)

• And we have a little bit of everything in regards to tides this weekend:
• 0' at sunrise
• 3.5' mid-morning
• 2' mid-afternoon
• 6' at sunset

FORECAST:

And just on cue for the 1st week of summer, we've got more sun and waves headed our way. 

First up is a new SW swell that will fill in on Monday and peak Tuesday/Wednesday for chest high surf and shoulder high+ sets at the better SW swell spots. We also have high pressure building slightly for next week that should result in more sun at the beaches. 

After the SW starts to back off late next week, models this weekend show a solid SW taking shape which should give us head high+ surf around the 28th-30th. And hopefully our water temps will be over 70 degrees by then. And I know I've said it a million times- even though the surf hasn't been particularly big this spring, it sure is nice to have rideable waves at least. Sure hope we're done with small surf, red tides, and beach closures! 

BEST BET:

Not the biggest this weekend but by Tuesday it should be better with shoulder high sets from the SW and great weather. And if you can wait that long- late next weekend with bigger SW...

WEATHER:

June Gloom the first 2 weeks of the month haven't been that bad (knock on wood). Some days have been slow to clear at the coast but the sun eventually has come out. That holds true for the weekend before slight high pressure starts to take hold early in the week. Look for the sun to come out a little earlier each day and temps to move slightly up to the low 70's. And if that's not warm enough for you, head to Death Valley on Monday where the high should hit 120 and a downright chilly 90 degrees at night. Now that's one place where they could use a wave pool. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

With Death Valley forecasted to hit 120 next week, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the Rain Shadow effect. Luckily for us in California, we have one of the best examples of that in the world- Mt. Whitney and Death Valley. So how does it occur? A rain shadow is a dry area on the leeward side of a mountainous area (away from the wind). The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a "shadow" of dryness behind them. Wind and moist air are drawn by the prevailing winds towards the top of the mountains, where it condenses and precipitates (fog/rain/snow, etc.) before it crosses the top. The air, without much moisture left, advances across the mountains creating a drier side called the "rain shadow". The condition exists because warm moist air rises by orographic lifting to the top of a mountain range (i.e. it gets pushed to the top by wind). As atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing altitude, the air has expanded and cooled to the point that the air reaches its dew point. Moisture then condenses onto the mountain and it precipitates on the top and windward sides of the mountain. The air will then descend on the leeward side, but has lost much of its moisture by that point. Typically, descending air also gets warmer because of compression down the leeward side of the mountain, which increases the amount of moisture that it can absorb and creates an arid region- hence a dry hot desert. 

So back to Mt. Whitney and Death Valley. As the moist Pacific winds come off the ocean and are forced upwards due to the wall knowns as Mt. Whitney, the result is fog/rain/snow on the west side of the mountain range. After the winds have lost most of their moisture, they come down the other side of Whitney and compress, resulting in warmer air. The result is a hot dry desert on the other side- aptly named Death Valley. For comparison's sake:

• Mt. Whitney and Death Valley are 100 miles apart. About the same as Encinitas and Los Angeles.
• Mt. Whitney gets roughly 42" of precipitation a year while Death Valley... a paltry 2.5"
• Mt. Whitney's low temperature tonight- close to freezing at 33 degrees. And Death Valley? Hot enough to fry an egg on the road at 113. That's a whopping 80 degree difference between the 2 locations. Imagine if Encinitas was 33 tonight and by tomorrow afternoon LA was 113?! Absurd. 
• And in case you're wondering- the other side of Mt. Everest is the famed Gobi Desert, the Andes in South America helped create the Atacama Desert, and the Sahara lies on the leeward side of the Atlas Mountains. 

And on a side note, if you're looking to stretch your legs and social distance this summer, head up the 395 on the eastern side of the Sierras and check out Mt. Whitney and Death Valley. Amazing scenery up there and a quick 3 hour drive. Just make sure you bring a heavy jacket and a tank top! 

PIC OF THE WEEK:

I swear it wouldn't surprise me if Ricardo Montalbán walked out of this jungle and said "Welcome, to Fantasy Island"...

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

Hearty

2012 American Ninja Warrior  

Snaked Fanning At Snapper So Now The Cops Consider Me A Superbank Robber

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Sprummer is my favorite season. 

SURF:

Man has it been fun lately. Plenty of fun surf, water temps are slowly rebounding, beaches are open, and sunny skies for days. The calendar may say spring but it sure feels like summer. Welcome to sprummer! For the weekend, we've got a little more clouds/fog on Friday/Saturday from weak low pressure but we may see some partial sun in the afternoons.

We also get a slight bump tomorrow from SW groundswell and NW windswell for chest high+ surf and maybe shoulder high sets Sunday morning. Once the low pressure departs on Saturday, we should have more sun on Sunday too. Water temps should also stick to the high 60's. Nothing big this weekend nor particularly hot, but good enough for me. As far as the sun/water temps/tides go, here's what you need to know:

• Sunrise and sunset are:
• 5:40 AM sunrise  
• 7:58 PM sunset  
• PS- the summer solstice is June 21st and the sunrises at 5:40 AM and sets at 8 PM. 
• Seattle? 5:11 AM and 9:11 PM
• And in Fairbanks, Alaska?... Sunrises at 2:58 AM and sets at 12:48 PM! That's almost 22 hours of surfing! 

• After all that horrible NNW wind the past week, water temps have rebounded to the high 60's thankfully. I refuse to wear a fullsuit on July 4th! 

• And tides are pretty simple this weekend:
• 3' at sunrise
• 1' mid-day
• 4' late afternoon

FORECAST:

Sunny skies and more swell are on tap to start the week. First up is a continuation of the SW groundswell for chest high surf in the far N part of San Diego County. 

We get a similar sized reinforcement mid-week from the SW. There will also be various shots of waist high+ NW most of next week. 

Charts then show a better SW that should arrive around the 21st for shoulder high surf and maybe chest high sets from the SW around the 25th. Nothing big (yet) with these swells but it's making up for a horrendous March and April. 

BEST BET:

Sunday with fun combo swell and more sun. Or Wednesday with more combo swell and sunny skies. Or better SW swell around the 21st...

WEATHER:

June Gloom returned today as low pressure asserted itself and patchy fog returned. Low pressure strengthens slightly tomorrow and the clouds may stick around all day at the beaches. For Saturday, the sun may peak out late in the day. Besides the clouds, SW winds around 10 mph should return. Low pressure will exit by Sunday and we'll have mostly sunny skies through Wednesday. Low pressure (June Gloom) may return the 2nd half of next week. Nothing out of the ordinary for the next 7 days- just low clouds/fog off and on and temps around 70. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

We've all seen video, movies, or maybe in real life, of a shark's fin slicing through the surface of the water, hunting down it's next meal. But do they really stay at the surface to look for their prey? A recent study in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, found in the bellies of great white sharks significant amounts of bottom-dwelling organisms such as stargazers, stingrays and eels. Does this mean sharks feed closer to the seafloor than previously thought? Here's what the researchers found:

“Within the sharks’ stomachs we found remains from a variety of fish species that typically live on the seafloor or buried in the sand. This indicates the sharks must spend a good portion of their time foraging just above the seabed,” lead author Richard Grainger, a Ph.D. candidate at the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney, said in a press release. “The stereotype of a shark’s dorsal fin above the surface as it hunts is probably not a very accurate picture. Scientists often tag sharks to measure their movement and travel behaviors, but it’s difficult to follow them to great depths without disrupting their natural behavior, Gregory Skomal, a fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in 2016. 

“We have plenty of data on white sharks that show that some of them go out to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, wander around and dive down to depths as great as 3,000 feet every day,” said Skomal. “But we don’t have any clue what they’re actually doing there.” So researchers from the University of Sydney, the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science set out to find some answers.  The team analyzed stomach contents of 40 deceased juvenile white sharks caught in the New South Wales Shark Meshing Program, and compared their findings with published global data on great white shark nutrition.

About 32% of the sharks’ preferred meals included mid-water swimming fish such as Australian salmon, while the remainder of the contents consisted of bottom-dwelling fish such as stargazers (17%), flat boneless fish such as stingrays (15%) and reef fish (5%).  “This evidence matches data we have from tagging white sharks that shows them spending a lot of time many meters below the surface,” Grainger said.The rest of the meals consisted of “less abundant prey” such as marine mammals, other sharks and cephalopods such as cuttlefish and squid, which “were eaten less frequently,” according to Grainger. But squid-hunting sharks are rare, experts say, and add to the mystery of sharks’ that is a shark’s behavior in the deep ocean blue. 

Shark versus giant squid:

Last week, the first scientific evidence of a shark interacting with a giant squid was published in the Journal of Fish Biology after photographer Deron Verbeck captured photos of a 7-foot whitetip shark with golf ball-sized suction marks on its skin.  Giant squid can live as deep as 2,000 feet in the cold, dark area of the ocean called the twilight zone, so the photographic evidence might reveal battle scars from an accidental bump-in, or the aftermath of a hungry shark going after the creature, study co-author Heather Bracken-Grissom, a biologist at Florida International University, told National Geographic.  “It is more likely this squid was being attacked by the shark and defending itself,” Bracken-Grissom said. 

“This finding about oceanic whitetips is significant and goes along with what we are thinking about white sharks,” Shaili Johri, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University in California, told the magazine. Great whites are commonly found swimming in what Johri believes to be an empty part of the ocean she calls the “white shark café.” Now, one of her theories that the predators are hunting for giant squid down there seems more realistic. 

Both studies highlight how connected marine food webs are, and how those webs can be used to protect many species of shark from hunting and entanglement in netting. These new findings can also inform policies on which parts of the ocean to protect in order to save sharks from overfishing and accidental catchings, and how to best prevent human-shark conflicts.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Every dog has its day. Case in point- my home break. Unde the right conditions with wind, tide, and swell, you'll get something like this, once a decade. Can't wait for 2030! 

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

Super Human Strength

Don't Need Binoculars 'Cause I Have 2000/20 Vision

My Parents Said It's Not Polite To Drop In Unannounced, That's Why I Yell And Scream When I Paddle For Waves

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

More surf coming! BUT...

SURF:

Hope you got some waves this week. 

Plenty of SW to start the week and NW filled in mid-week too for rideable waves everywhere. That NW though brought a significant drop in water temps (if you didn't know already) and buoys in San Diego reported 59 degrees on Tuesday. In June no less. Ouch. The wind though has switched to the S today and is pooling up our warm water again along the Southern California coastline and temps have rebounded to the mid-60's thankfully. 

 

As far as the surf goes this weekend, we had more moderate SW swell filling in today for chest high sets and that builds on Friday/Saturday for head high surf. BUT... models show a weak late season low pressure system moving through Friday evening (showers?) and blowing through this weekend. As it does, that will create 3 things: 

1. WNW winds for bumpy conditions late Saturday into Sunday
2. More NW windswell to join the SW for overhead surf late Sunday into Monday morning
3. A drop again in our water temps

I have to admit though, on the charts, this low pressure system looks really weak, but the forecast models keep saying it's going to be windy. I hope they're wrong. Because of the uncertainty, I won't be activating the Emergency Boardriding System, even though there will be plenty of surf. As far as the sun/water temps/tides go, here's what you need to know:

• Sunrise and sunset are:
• 5:41 AM sunrise  
• 7:55 PM sunset

• Water temps are 65 but could drop back to high 50's if the forecasted NW winds arrive by Sunday

• And tides are a roller coaster this weekend:
• -1' at sunrise
• 3.5' mid-day
• 2' late afternoon
• 5' at sunset

FORECAST:

The SW groundswell and NW windswell from the weekend is backed up by another one late Sunday into Monday morning for well overhead surf before the NW drops quickly through the day. By Tuesday morning, we still have solid SW for head high surf and that trends down through the week. By next weekend, we just have waist high+ SW/NW. 

Charts though do show more storms off Antarctica this weekend which may give us more shoulder high SW around the 18th. 

BEST BET:

Friday afternoon/Saturday morning before the winds kick in. Or Monday afternoon/Tuesday morning with cleaner conditions and leftover fun SW. 

WEATHER:

The low pressure mentioned above has brought June Gloom to our coastline and that will stick around through Sunday morning. There may even be a slight chance of showers on Friday evening/Saturday morning. Didn't expect to see that in June. High pressure is expected to show up early in the week and we should have plenty of sun and above average temps by mid-week for classic summer like conditions. Low clouds may return next weekend, so enjoy the beach weather mid-week while you can. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

With the weak cold front moving through on Saturday and the potential of a slower than average hurricane season on tap, can we all agree our rainy season is over? I don't think the potential showers this weekend will amount to anything and if we don't expect much tropical moisture to reach Southern California this summer, let's just assume these are the final numbers for our rainy season which runs from October 1st to September 30th:

• Newport Beach: 12.76" this season. Normal for the entire year is 13.3". 98% of average. 
• Oceanside: 17.25" this season. Normal for the entire year is 13.66". 132% of average.
• San Diego: 13.46 this season. Normal for the entire year is 10.34. 134% of average.
• And for comparison's sake:
• Palm Springs: 5.79" this season. Normal for the entire year is 5.74". 122% of average.
• San Francisco: 9.18" this season. Normal for the entire year is 20.56". 45% of average.

Considering last winter was a neutral weather pattern (neither La Nina or El Nino), it was good to see Southern California's rainfall totals mostly above average. And shocking to see Northern California well below average for rainfall. Generally deserts are defined as areas that receive an average annual rainfall of less than 10 inches. So is San Francisco now considered a desert? Not really, but eye opening. But that's weather for you- you'll never know what you're going to get...

PIC OF THE WEEK:

To get to Robert Plants' favorite surf spot, you have to go over the hills and far away...

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

Brawny

Quality Family Time Last Night Playing Monopoly On Xbox

Surf Is So Crowded Now That I Don't Go Left, Right, Or Even Straight- I Surf The Back Of Waves