Surf is on! Come 'n get it!
SURF:
Surf has been fun the past few days in North County San Diego with chest high+ combo from the NW/SW. The only bummer (you knew it was coming) is all the NW wind the past week. Sure it hasn't been too strong, but just that slight breeze has caused upwelling everyday to make our water temps drop 15 degrees since Sunday. Just when it's supposed to be our warmest water temps this time of year, it feels like March instead. But I'll take cold water as long as there's surf. Speaking of that, we had peaking SW swell today and a touch more NW windswell will show on Friday, which will keep us in chest high+ surf. Both swells drop off after that and we're back to waist high waves on Sunday. So get on it Friday morning before it's gone! And here's some numbers to crunch on:
- Sunrise and sunset:
- 6:21 AM sunrise
- 7:16 PM sunset
- Well, that was one of the quickest drop off in water temps I've ever seen. Last Sunday it was 79 degrees in Del Mar and by Thursday it was 63. That's not cool. Actually it is cool, but not in a good way. You know what I mean.
- And here's the tides this weekend:
- 3' at sunrise
- 4.5' at breakfast
- 2' after lunch
- 6' at sunset
FORECAST:
Still no major activity off Antarctica or the Aleutians (heard that before?), so no surf next week (i.e. waist high or under).
Charts though do show a small storm forming off New Zealand/Antarctica this weekend which could send us shoulder high sets from the SW around September 5th. Clear your schedule! (Unless I just jinxed it of course). As far as the tropics go, we had a couple weak storms form off Mainland Mexico and Baja this week- but one was small and the other never got in our swell window- so we won't expect any surf from them. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes though!
Charts though do show a small storm forming off New Zealand/Antarctica this weekend which could send us shoulder high sets from the SW around September 5th. Clear your schedule! (Unless I just jinxed it of course). As far as the tropics go, we had a couple weak storms form off Mainland Mexico and Baja this week- but one was small and the other never got in our swell window- so we won't expect any surf from them. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes though!
BEST BET:
Friday with fun SW/NW combo. Or next weekend with better SW.
WEATHER:
Little bit of everything the next 7 days: First up, muggy late summer conditions have dissipated and we've got cooler weather on tap this weekend. Look for the return of low clouds/fog in the nights/mornings and temps in the low to mid-70's at the beaches. Early next week, monsoon moisture makes an uneventful return for slightly elevated temps and humidity. And then... high pressure may set up over the NE Pacific by the middle of next week and we could see slightly warmer temps, less clouds, and less humidity. In summary- mild temps are on tap the next 7 days.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Enjoy the humidity the past few days? Makes for nice sunsets at least. It thankfully is on it's way out for a few days, but it may show the wave of the future, when hot, muggy weather will be more common. Here's what the San Diego Union Tribune reported this week about the recent conditions- and soon to be long term:Alexander Gershunov, a climate scientist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said “Heat waves are one of the extreme weather events that are most directly influenced by global warming,” Gershunov said. “Their activity has been increasing all over the globe. “Specifically, in California, they’re not only becoming more intense and longer-lasting, but they’re also changing their flavor, becoming more humid.”
The recent heat wave sent mercury soaring to triple digit temperatures in dozens of San Diego communities. Besides the heat were high relative humidity levels of 70 percent to 80 percent, said Samantha Connolly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Relative humidity represents the ratio of the current humidity to the highest possible amount of water the air can hold. The higher it is, the wetter the atmosphere. In the summer, it’s usually 20 percent to 30 percent in San Diego, Connolly said. Damp air doesn’t allow much evaporation, so it feels hotter than it is, making it harder for people to cool off. “That’s what we were seeing across most valley areas,” Connolly said. “We’re seeing temperatures in the 90s, but it feels like 100.”
The wetter air retains heat, so temperatures climb during the day and persist at night, allowing little relief. Nighttime lows, usually in the 60s during the summer in San Diego, didn’t drop much below 70 degrees Fahrenheit over the past week, Connolly said. “The humid heat is more oppressing during the day, and it doesn’t cool off at night, so you don’t get the respite from the heat at night,” Gershunov said. “It starts off warmer the next day, and after one or two or three of these cycles of oppressive heat during the day, and hot, muggy nights, especially people with health vulnerabilities, begin to get sick, and some people die.”
The high humidity in the recent weather pattern comes from air flow from a portion of the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California that’s warming faster than global oceans on average, he said. “A lot of the time in these big summer time heat waves, the air is brought in from the south, from that part of the ocean that’s warming a lot,” he said.
Climate change is expected to amplify heat waves in the future, as land and water temperatures increase, he said. Scientists are measuring those effects already, he said; over the last 22 years, San Diego broke heat records 89 times, but surpassed cold records only once. “The warming associated with climate change is projected to accelerate in the future,” he said. “In terms of heat waves, it’s like having heat waves on steroids. So the background climate warming makes heat waves hotter, and in California more humid, as well.” It’s not only uncomfortable, but also dangerous, he said. The normal human response to heat is sweat, which allows evaporative cooling through the skin. With humid air, sweat doesn’t evaporate off, and people can overheat.
That’s particularly hazardous to older or ill people, he said. And the COVID-19 pandemic makes it even harder to handle, since space at cooling centers may be limited by social distancing, and people facing economic hardship may not be able to afford to turn on air conditioning at home. It requires a new approach to reducing heat risk, he said, perhaps including reducing electricity rates during heat waves to make life-saving cooling more affordable. “We probably need to rethink our mitigation and intervention strategies,” he said. “There’s got to be some plan to mitigate the impact of these humid heat waves.”
PIC OF THE WEEK: Haven't heard from Mason, JOB, or Blair lately? If I was a betting man, I'd put $1000 bucks down in Laughlin that they're attempting to ride this.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Got The Inside Track
Still Enjoy Finger Painting
Did My 1st Aerial In Palm Springs (The Tramway That Is, Not The Surf Club)
