THE Surf Report- Early Edition

I can't wait for November 3rd! 

SURF:

No, I'm not talking about the election. Something more important than that: Rideable surf! I've seen it with my own eyes. And it's headed our way. 

But before I get ahead of myself, let's talk about the week(s) that wasn't. Still small around here (ok, flat) and the N winds from the Santa Anas dropped our water temps, but we have a slight bump coming our way this weekend (and much better after that- sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself again). 

For Friday, it's still flat and for Saturday afternoon, we may see waist high sets from the SW from a new small storm that formed last week off Antarctica. Sunday looks slightly better with waist high+ sets and a lil' bigger towards the OC. I know, I know, not exciting, but better than nothing. And here's the tides, sun, and water info:

• Sunrise and sunset:
• 7:06 AM sunrise. 
• 5.58 PM sunset
• And Daylight Saving Time is Sunday! Make sure to set your clocks back when you go to bed on Halloween. Sunrise and sunset on Sunday will then be:
• 6:07 AM sunrise (crack it at 5:45 AM?!)
• 4:57 PM sunset (forget surfing after work now...)

• As mentioned above, put away those trunks until next year, our water's in the mid-60's.

• And the tides this weekend:
• 4' at sunrise
• 5.5' mid-morning
• And pretty much 0' late afternoon

FORECAST:

Ok, enough of the small stuff. Let's get down to business. I found more batteries at the last Radio Shack on earth and I put them in the Emergency Boardriding System, so we're back on track for surf! Yes, that means I'm turning on the EBS again. 

The north and south Pacific have come to life and we've got new NW starting to fill in on Tuesday for waist high surf around north county SD and chest high surf in SD. 

We also have building SW so there should be fun chest high surf. Both swells continue to fill in for chest high+ surf on Wednesday. 

We get another boost from the SW on Thursday which will give most spots shoulder high surf. 

The SW continues Friday and starts to back off Saturday BUT... new NW starts to fill in. Look for head high surf. The SW will back off by next Sunday but the NW still should be fun for shoulder high surf. Did you get all that? No? Ok- look for fun surf from Wednesday to Sunday. Models also show a little life off Mainland Mexico but hurricanes in November are rare. BUT... 2020 is as odd as it gets, so who knows. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

BEST BET: 

Wednesday through Sunday with good NW/SW groundswells! 

WEATHER:

Great weather is on tap for the foreseeable future with temps in the mid-70's at the beaches and limited low clouds/fog. Early next week, high pressure builds slightly for temps near 80. Things slowly get back to normal by next weekend with maybe a chance of showers by Sunday? Regardless, no real storms for the near future. 

NEWS OF THE WEEK: 

I've touched on this subject a few times but thought I'd revisit it for a couple reasons that I shall discuss in a moment. The topic? What makes waves and just how big can they get? Besides Kelly Slater making waves in Lemoore or Mason Ho surfing waves created by calving glaciers, most of us surf waves created by wind. As wind blows across the smooth water surface, the friction or drag between the air and the water tends to stretch the surface. As waves form, the surface becomes rougher and it is easier for the wind to grip the water surface and intensify the waves. Storms of equal size can generate much larger waves in the open Pacific Ocean as compared to the other oceans due to the long open distance of water. How big wind waves get depends on three things:

• Wind strength. The wind must be moving faster than the wave crests for energy to be transferred.
• Wind duration. Strong wind that does not blow for a long period will not generate large waves.
• Fetch. This is the uninterrupted distance over which the wind blows without significant change in direction.

After the wind begins to blow for a while, the waves get higher from trough to crest, and both the wave length and period become longer. As the wind continues or strengthens, the water first forms whitecaps and eventually the waves start to break. This is referred to as a fully developed sea. In the book Oceanography and Seamanship, William G. Van Dorn provided an example of what the wave heights would be if a steady 30 knots (33 mph/53 km/h) wind blew for 24 hours over a fetch of 340 miles.

• 10% of all waves will be less than 3.6 ft. (1 m).
• The most frequent wave height will be 8½ ft. (2½ m).
• The average wave height will be 11 ft. (3 m).
• The significant wave height will be 17 ft. (5 m).
• 10% of all waves will be higher than 18 ft. (5 m).
• The average wave height of the highest 10% of all waves will be 22 ft. (7 m).
• A 5% chance of encountering a single wave higher than 35 ft. (11 m) among every 200 waves that pass in about 30 minutes.
• A 5% chance of encountering a single wave higher than 40 ft. (12 m) among every 2,600 waves that pass in about five hours.

The waves in a fully developed sea outrun the storm that creates them, lengthening and reducing in height in the process. There are called swell waves. Swells organize into groups smooth and regular in appearance. They are able to travel thousands of miles unchanged in height and period. The longer the wave, the faster it travels. As waves leave a storm area, they tend to sort themselves out with the long ones ahead of the short ones, and the energy is simultaneously spread out over an increasingly larger area. As the waves close in on the coast, they begin to feel the bottom and their direction of travel might change due to the contour of the land. Eventually, the waves run ashore, increasing in height up to 1.5 times their height in deep water, finally breaking up as surf.

There are many sailor tales of "rogue waves", "freak waves", "three sisters" and other "killer waves". Properly called "extreme storm waves" these tales were ridiculed and mariners were accused of using them as an excuse to cover their own mistakes in wrecks. Rogue waves are simply unusually large waves appearing in a set of smaller waves. Some of the characteristics of rogue waves are:

• Their height is greater than twice the size of surrounding waves,
• They often come unexpectedly from directions other than prevailing wind and waves and, most importantly,
• They are unpredictable.

Most reports of extreme storm waves say they look like "walls of water," and are seen as steep-sided with unusually deep troughs. The USS Ramapo reported one such wave with a height of 112 feet in the Pacific in 1933. Another report of a freak wave occurred with it struck the Queen Mary amidships, south of Newfoundland, at the end of World War II, rolling her to within a degree or two of capsizing. In April 2005, a 70-foot wave crashed down on the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship. The average waves that day were 25 to 30 feet high before this monster wave struck. The wave even damaged the ship's hull.

What causes these enormous waves? Generally they form because of swells, while traveling across the ocean, do so at different speeds and directions. As these swells pass through one another their crests, troughs, and lengths happen to coincide and reinforce each other, combining to form unusually large waves that tower then disappear. If the swell are traveling close to the same direction, these mountainous waves may last for several minutes before subsiding. It is very seldom that huge waves over 65 feet (20 meters) are developed and normally sailors do not even see them, because ships nowadays will try to avoid such conditions by altering course before the storm hits. But they do occur as evident of 70+ waves at Nazare, Cortes Bank, Jaws, etc. 

So the million dollar question is... just how big can the surf get? Will we ever see someone ride a 150' wave? The answer is most likely 'no'. Surfers have been keeping a keen eye on storms and the large waves they produce ever since the El Nino winter of 1969 in Hawaii and California. Since the limiting factors for generating waves are fetch, duration, and wind strength, we've probably seen most scenarios in the past 50 years of creating XXL surf. So what exactly is the height of the biggest rideable wave? Probably 100'. If you believe the November 2001 swell at Mavericks or Garrett McNamara's ride in January of 2013 at Nazare, then these waves were probably in the 100' range and will be hard to beat. Sure we may see a rideable wave that's 102' 103', etc., but 125'? Or 150'? Scientifically it's not likely. And if 100' surfable waves only happen every decade on average (and this year being a La Nina year), don't hold your breath. Unless you're practicing your hold downs. 

PIC OF THE WEEK:

You've probably seen the pics coming out of Europe today from the MEGA swell that walloped its shores. Here's a day more to my liking. 

 

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

Bright

I Have So Much Time Accumulated From Daylight Saving That I'm Going To Live An Extra 7 Years

The Only Media I Trust Is The North County Surf Blog

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

I don't call it 'grovelling', I call it 'getusedtoit'. 

SURF:

This time of year we should be talking about getting those step ups out of the rafters, fixing those dings, making sure that leash is secured tightly, and seeing if we have the nerve to paddle out. But this year isn't normal of course, so instead we're talking about how small of a wave we can ride, is purchasing a SUP worth it, and adding a few pounds around the mid-section doesn't look to shabby. So while we wait for the waves of fall and winter to kick in, SD is left with waist high to chest high surf, cooler air temps, and sparse crowds thankfully. For Friday, we've got leftover SW on with a touch of new windswell for more waist to chest high surf. One note: we have a couple weak cold fronts moving through Saturday/Sunday so it may be on the junky side. But by Sunday it will be small anyway- so no biggie. And here's the tides, sun, and water info:

• Sunrise and sunset:
• 7:00 AM sunrise! Sheesh that's late. 
• 6:05 PM sunset! Sheesh that's early. 

• And with the cooling air temps, our water temps are responding to the mid-60's

• And the tides this weekend look like one of those roller coasters at the fair- pretty tame:
• 4.5' at breakfast
• 2.5' at lunch
• 4.5' at dinner 

FORECAST:

Still no major storms in the Pacific mean still no major surf for us. 

Models today showed a short lived storm of the Aleutians this weekend which may give us waist high+ surf on Tuesday with chest high sets in SD (with small background SW). 

Further out, the southern hemisphere can't get organized but we could see waist high SW around Halloween with a chest high set at best OC spots. So there you have it! Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

BEST BET: 

Tuesday with cleaner conditions and small NW/SW. Or maybe Halloween with clean conditions again and waist high sets from the SW. Looking forward to it! 

WEATHER:

We have something to talk about finally! Looks like our first real weather is headed our way this weekend. Now granted, it's nothing big, but it's something different nonetheless. Here's what we got: A weak cold front moves through late Friday into Saturday for around 0.10" of rain. We then get a slightly stronger system for late Sunday into Monday which could give us 0.25" at the coast and maybe slightly more depending if the storm sucks up a little moisture over the Pacific. Regardless, look for cloudy skies this weekend, a slight breeze, and keep the jacket handy. Air temps will also be a story this weekend with highs only the mid-60's during the day and mid-50's at night. I'm super excited. Unfortunately, as is normal this time of year, once that low pressure leaves the area on Tuesday, high pressure sets up behind it and we've got a slight Santa Ana condition. I'm not super excited about that. Hopefully winds won't be that strong next week. 

NEWS OF THE WEEK: 

Everything you always wanted to ask the ocean but were afraid to ask:

• Why can't you drink seawater?
• Seawater is toxic to humans because your body is unable to get rid of the salt that comes from seawater. Your body normally gets rid of excess salt by having the kidneys produce urine, but it needs freshwater to dilute the salt in your body for the kidneys to work properly. Normally that is not a problem, as you are always drinking water and eating food with water. Tissue in your body also contains freshwater that can be used. But if there is too much salt in your body, your kidneys cannot get enough freshwater to dilute the salt and your body will fail. So there. 

• Where does all the Earth's water come from? 
• Primordial Earth was an incandescent globe made of magma, but all magmas contain water. Water set free by magma began to cool down the Earth's atmosphere, until it could stay on the surface as a liquid. Volcanic activity kept and still keeps introducing water in the atmosphere, thus increasing the surface- and groundwater volume of the Earth.
  
  The water cycle has no starting point. But, we'll begin in the oceans, since that is where 96% of Earth's water exists. The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in the oceans. Some of it evaporates as vapor into the air. Ice and snow can sublimate directly into water vapor. Rising air currents take the vapor up into the atmosphere, along with water from evapotranspiration, which is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil. The vapor rises into the air where cooler temperatures cause it to condense into clouds.
  
  Air currents move clouds around the globe, cloud particles collide, grow, and fall out of the sky as precipitation. Some precipitation falls as snow and can accumulate as ice caps and glaciers, which can store frozen water for thousands of years. Snowpacks in warmer climates often thaw and melt when spring arrives, and the melted water flows overland as snowmelt.
  
  Most precipitation falls back into the oceans or onto land, where, due to gravity, the precipitation flows over the ground as surface runoff. A portion of runoff enters rivers in valleys in the landscape, with streamflow moving water towards the oceans. Runoff, and groundwater seepage, accumulate and are stored as freshwater in lakes. Not all runoff flows into rivers, though. Much of it soaks into the ground as infiltration. Some water infiltrates deep into the ground and replenishes aquifers (saturated subsurface rock), which store huge amounts of freshwater for long periods of time.
  
  Some infiltration stays close to the land surface and can seep back into surface-water bodies (and the ocean) as groundwater discharge, and some groundwater finds openings in the land surface and emerges as freshwater springs. Over time, though, all of this water keeps moving, some to reenter the ocean, where the water cycle ends- or where I guess it begins again?

• Are garbage patches floating islands of trash?
• You may have heard about garbage patches and envisioned floating landfills. In fact, tiny microplastics make up the majority of the debris in garbage patches (by quantity). The currents in certain areas of the ocean form a sort of whirlpool, pulling in microplastics as well as larger debris like derelict fishing nets. Rather than floating, debris is spread from the surface to the seafloor and scattered over huge areas of the ocean. The currents are constantly shifting and moving debris around. This makes cleaning up garbage patches a very difficult task. NOAA’s Marine Debris Program focuses on marine debris prevention as well as removal on shorelines and in coastal areas.

• Do sharks hunt humans?
• Sharks are depicted in movies as ruthless man-eaters, hunting humans for sport or revenge. In reality, humans are not part of any shark’s natural diet (unless you saw the super realistic movie 'The Meg' which was totally awesome if I don't say so myself). There are over 500 species of sharks, but the majority are not a threat to us. Unprovoked interactions with humans are extremely rare. In fact, a world without sharks is a much bigger threat. Removing apex predators like large sharks from marine ecosystems has negative impacts throughout the food web, including on the fish and shellfish that we eat. NOAA’s Marine Fisheries Service works to ensure healthy shark populations in U.S. waters, and to protect endangered shark species.

• Are melting icebergs the cause of our current sea level rise?
• When you add an ice cube to your glass, the water level goes up. But when that ice cube melts, there’s no additional change in the water level. The same process applies to sea level rise. Glaciers hold ice on land. When they start to melt and break apart, that ice enters the marine environment. Land-based ice can melt and enter the ocean as liquid water, or large chunks can break away in the form of icebergs. When these icebergs enter the water, sea level rises. Increased melting of land-based ice is one of the major causes of global sea level rise. But once the ice is floating in the water, the sea level does not change again when it melts.

• Do whales shoot water out of their blowholes?
• The famous image of a spout of water rising as a whale surfaces leads many to believe whales are expelling water into the air. But whales don’t have water in their lungs. Blowholes work like nostrils; the spray is just them exhaling air. Then what makes the spray? Some of it may be water on the top of the whale’s head when it surfaces, and some is mucus, just like when you blow your nose. But the rest of the spray is actually water vapor. The air inside a whale’s lungs is much warmer than the air outside. When this warm air is expelled, it immediately condenses into water vapor.

It's like studying at Scripps Institute but without the college loans. 

PIC OF THE WEEK:

I can't WAIT to surf waves like this again in 2023!

 

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

Reveler

Just Mailed My Ballot For the 2024 Election

Used To Be A Sidewalk Surfer But Now I'm A Swell Skater

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Fall is falling behind. 

SURF:

Great weather this week and a little SW/NW combo, but that's about it. Can't complain, it's rideable, but I'm still looking for solid surf (as usual) and our first cold front (which usually happens right around mid-October). As far as this weekend goes, no solid surf to speak of. 

But we do have a slight bump from the SW late Saturday for waist high+ surf through Sunday. And here's the tides, sun, and water info:

• Sunrise and sunset:
• 6:55 AM sunrise (maybe paddle out at 6:45?)
• 6:13 PM sunset  (maybe paddle in at 6:30?)

• And our water temps are holding on to the low 70's thanks to the heat wave this week. That's about 5 degrees warmer than normal. 

• And the tides this weekend are pretty extreme- which are the opposite of last weekend's boring 1.5' tide swing!
• 4' at sunrise
• 6.5' mid-morning
• -1' late afternoon
• 1' at sunset 

FORECAST:

Still no solid storms on the charts but we have more SW groundswell/NW windswell headed our way. 

For Monday/Tuesday, the SW that filled in over the weekend will get a slight boost for chest high sets. On Wednesday/Thursday, that's joined by NW windswell, and maybe chest high+ surf if you're lucky from the combo swell. And the tropics are pretty uneventful but make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

BEST BET: 

Mid-week with chest high+ combo swell.

WEATHER:

Summer will hang on for a couple more days before fall finally gets a slight hold on our weather. Look for temps near 80 at the beaches on Friday with patchy fog in the nights/mornings and down to the mid-70's on Sunday. High pressure continues to slowly back off next week and the low clouds/fog in the nights/mornings become more persistent. No rain in sight but we should be back to temps in the low 70's by late in the week. Time to turn off the AC (or the 8 Walmart fans in my house).

NEWS OF THE WEEK: 

I'm sure you've heard by now of the ancient shark called the Megalodon that makes Great Whites look like Nemo. If you haven't read about these 50'+ eating behemoths, check out my story here: https://northcountysurf.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-surf-report-early-edition.html. Or here's some facts to chew on (no pun intended):

• 16 million years ago - Otodus megalodon evolves from an ancestral group of megatooth sharks—the last member of a line that began 60 million years ago.
• 10 million years ago - The shark spreads to coastal waters worldwide. Clusters of baby teeth near Panama suggest nurseries were close to shore.
• 5 million years ago - Great white sharks evolve, and likely compete with the massive Meg to eat the same marine mammals, such as whales.
• 3.5 million years ago - Otodus megalodon seemingly goes extinct around a time of upheaval, including cooling seas & a dip in the species it munched on.
• 70 CE - Pliny the Elder notes that large “tongue stones” found in the rock strata of Europe may fall from the heavens during lunar eclipses.
• 1666 - Danish scientist Nicolas Steno dissects the head of a shark found off the coast of Italy and speculates that “tongue stones” are teeth.
• 1835 - Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz coins the name Carcharodon megalodon in describing a set of the creature’s giant chompers.
• 1875 - The HMS Challenger dredges up megalodon teeth from the deep sea near Tahiti, fueling speculation about the shark’s survival.
• 1909 - Researchers build a model of a Meg jaw that fits six standing adults—suggesting an 80-foot body. This is now considered oversize.
• 1919 - Fishers in Australia claim to see a massive shark eat multiple lobster pots. The legend eventually makes its way into megalodon lore.
• 1974 - Peter Benchley publishes Jaws, which plays with the idea that a prehistoric man-eater might lurk in the deep. The public is hooked.
• 2016 - After decades of debate on the specifics of Meg’s family tree, the giant shark gets the new scientific name Otodus megalodon.
• 2020 - 3.5 million years after it's so-called extinction, the Otodus megalodon surfaces again, this time at Swamis, and clears the water of 100+ surfers, leaving only Michael Glenn in the line up to enjoy flawless 6-8' surf by himself (ok, this part is made up)

Now that you've had a refresher course, I bet you're glad they're extinct! Or are they?... Here's the theory from Popular Science:

It’s got to be out there. It doesn’t matter that Otodus megalodon has by all scientific accounts been extinct for more than 3 million years. The ongoing earthly presence of the enormous shark persists in our collective imagination thanks to rumors, legends, and summer B flicks.

Meg mythology often posits that the 50-foot predator has been hiding for epochs somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a notion that’s launched more than a few books and pseudo-docs, all hinging on the fact that most of the planet’s nether waters are unexplored—and therefore rife with primo dens for enigmatic beasts. But based on what we know of the biological adaptations required for life down below, not many animals could pull off a deep-sea disappearing act. If megalodon is still out there (and that’s a pretty big if), it’s not what it used to be.

Fossil shark teeth got people hooked on the Meg long before paleontology took off in the early 19th century, when scientists started cataloging fossils with gusto. In 1835, Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz described triangular, finely serrated teeth, which had been found worldwide since antiquity, as belonging to a “megatooth” relative of the great white.

Discoveries around the world—in locations as diverse as Panama, Japan, Australia, and the southeastern United States—piled up over time, but one particular find raised the specter of a Meg still swimming in the deep. In 1875, during an expedition for the Royal Society of London, the HMS Challenger dredged up 4-inch-long teeth from a depth of 14,000 feet near Tahiti. In 1959, zoologist Wladimir Tschernezky, who made a hobby of researching “hidden animals” like Bigfoot, estimated the specimens were just 11,300 years old. Other scientists have since dismissed this dating, but unscrupulous documentarians and curious amateurs still highlight the research as a hint that Meg might persist.

Save for the outliers found by the Challenger, the megalodon’s fossil record indicates it was a shore-hugging creature, similar to its distant cousin the great white. “Remains generally come from coastal marine rock deposits formed in tropical-temperate areas,” says DePaul University shark researcher Kenshu Shimada. The species’s dietary habits further confirm a shallow lifestyle, with gnawed ancient whale bones showing Meg’s preference for marine mammals. These air breathers had to break through the surface for oxygen, so paleontologists expect megalodon, like them, hung out near the shore.

The exact combination of factors that pushed the ancient shark into extinction is still murky. We do know that shallower oceanic zones were undergoing dramatic changes around 3.5 million years ago, when the giant disappears from the fossil record. Water was growing cooler, making marine mammals less abundant, and the newly evolved great white may have served as a nimble competitor for resources. But there’s no way to prove definitively what did in the Meg.

The lack of certainty helps some maintain hope of finding one in the deep. Believers have at least one thing right: The bottom of the sea is an enigma. Even though satellites have mapped 100 percent of its floor, a low-resolution chart alone doesn’t give us great insight into what actually lives there, says Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium Executive Director Craig McClain, who specializes in cataloging oceanic systems. While the idea of a deep-dwelling ancient creature is highly improbable, he says, the sliver of possibility is still tempting. Less imposing critters have indeed shown up unexpectedly; in 1938 biologists identified a living coelacanth—a species of fish presumed extinct for about 65 million years.

If the megalodon were living in the dark, inky depths, though, it would have had to become a very different sort of creature—one we might not find nearly as cinematic. For one thing, Shimada says, its ravenous metabolism would need to fundamentally change. Preliminary geochemical analysis of isotopes in remains, which can help scientists estimate the body temperature of prehistoric organisms, indicates that megalodon was “warm-blooded” in the same sense as the great white. That predator’s active ocean cruising generates enough body heat to keep it toastier than surrounding seawater, an effort that burns through the equivalent of about six pounds of flesh a day. Meg may have weighed as much as three times more, and would have presumably required proportional grub. Yet animals near the ocean floor have to get by on teensy scraps, preying on the scant species that live there or hoovering up biological detritus that sinks down from carcasses above.

This scarcity of food tends to make organisms evolve small, efficient forms, making many low-living sharks relatively sluggish and slight. A megalodon living far enough down to evade human detection might now look something like a sleeper shark—a long, cigar-shaped animal that’s about as lively as it sounds—as opposed to a burly, toothy beast.

Yet even if Meg had assumed a slender and slow disguise, we’d probably have seen evidence of it by now. “Ocean giants that we do know about have global distributions,” McClain says. Even if we rarely spy creatures like giant squids, which live in the more forgiving upper ranges of what we’d call the deep sea, they leave markers of their existence strewn around the world in the form of carcasses (and bites taken out of unlucky critters). We’ve yet to spot any such refuse, if it even exists.

But these realities can’t extinguish the Meg’s enduring myth (and summer movie franchises). “As a deep-sea explorer and as a scientist who spends a lot of time researching known ocean giants, I really want there to be some unknown one that is undiscovered, and to make that discovery,” McClain says. Its mysterious nature—what we know of it comes largely from studying teeth—makes it enticing to imagine the Meg’s pulled off the ultimate vanishing act and could, perhaps, reemerge at any moment. The key is where scientists decide to look. While paleontologists are almost certain megalodon doesn’t swim in our modern seas, they might still find more details about the species in the depths of the fossil record—and its enduring secrets could break the surface when we least expect. Can't wait! 

PIC OF THE WEEK:

A little pre-Halloween scary picture for you. 

 

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

Commissioner

Lived In Brussels, I Was 6'4" And Full Of Muscles

Made An Eco-Friendly Surfboard Made Of Sugarcane That Unfortunately Dissolves During Your Session

THE Surf Report- Early Early Edition!

The EBS has officially run out of batteries. 

SURF:

I probably should have turned off the Emergency Boardriding System a few days ago but the surf has been so darn fun (thank you Major Hurricane Marie). But all good things must come to an end and we're back to waist high surf around here, cloudy skies, and morning winds. So what's the weekend look like? 

We had a little activity off Antarctica last week so there's a little bump from the SW arriving Friday along with some NW wind/groundswell. Look for waist high+ surf Friday afternoon and chest high sets on Saturday. On Sunday we get a reinforcement from the NW for more consistent chest high surf. One item of note: we have a weak cold front forecasted to move through Saturday evening/Sunday morning so we may have bumpy conditions (as evident by this morning's less than stellar conditions) and light showers. Plan your session accordingly. And here's the tides, sun, and water info:

• Sunrise and sunset:
• 6:49 AM sunrise   
• 6:21 PM sunset  
• And in case you're wondering when Daylight Saving will end, it's Sunday, November 1st. Sun will come up 6:08 at AM and sunset is 4:56 PM!

• And our water temps are in the high 60's

• And the tides this weekend are pretty boring:
• 4' at sunrise
• 3' before lunch
• 4.5' at dinner 

FORECAST:

After the combo swell this weekend, Monday is more of the same and there's nothing of interest until Friday unfortunately. 

Models do show a storm taking form tomorrow off Antarctica/South America which should give us chest high+ SSW next weekend. So until then, enjoy the next couple of days. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.

BEST BET: 

This weekend with small but fun combo swell or next weekend with slightly better SSW swell. 

WEATHER:

As mentioned above, we get a small taste of fall this weekend as a weak cold front swings through the area late Saturday into Sunday. No real rain is forecasted but we will have clouds, a little breeze, and maybe 1/10" of precip. Fire up that chimney! Behind it, high pressure sets up shop for sunny skies and temps in the mid 70's next week. 

NEWS OF THE WEEK: 

It's a tale of 2 cities when it comes to East Coast vs. West Coast hurricanes this season. As you know by now, the East Coast is breaking records while out here on the West Coast, not so much. Here's our friends at the Weather Channel to give us perspective:

Hurricane Delta in the Gulf of Mexico today is likely to be the 10th named storm to landfall in the mainland United States during the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, breaking a record that has stood for more than a century. Delta is expected to hit the northern Gulf Coast Friday into early Saturday. When it does, the mainland U.S. will have seen 10 landfalls from tropical storms and hurricanes this year since the barrage began in late May. That would break the 1916 record of nine mainland U.S. landfalls in a season, according to Phil Klotzbach, a tropical scientist at Colorado State University.

Four of the landfalls so far in 2020 have been from hurricanes, including Hanna, Isaias, Laura and Sally. Delta is currently forecast to be the fifth hurricane landfall of this year. Five U.S. hurricane landfalls would be more than double the average of one to two hurricane landfalls per year, according to NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. Of the 10 landfalls, Delta is likely to be the seventh to occur along the Gulf Coast from Alabama to South Texas. Three of those – Cristobal, Marco and Laura – were in Louisiana, and Delta has a chance to join them as the state's fourth.

Much of the U.S. East and Gulf coasts have already been in at least one tropical storm warning in the 2020 hurricane season from the first nine landfalling storms. That even includes coastal New England as far north as Downeast Maine, which was briefly in a tropical storm warning from Isaias. While it didn't officially make landfall, the season's first storm, Tropical Storm Arthur, also prompted tropical storm warnings in eastern North Carolina as it brushed by in mid-May.

Only Florida's Upper Keys and the west coast of Florida, east of Apalachicola, has yet to be placed under a tropical storm or hurricane warning so far this season. When considering warnings issued inland, even parts of western Maine have been in a tropical storm warning this season before the west coast of Florida. After Oct. 4, an average hurricane season delivers another two named storms. So it's possible we're not done after Delta, as far as U.S. impact is concerned.

And if you look at just the named storms this summer (that includes storms making landfall AND staying out to sea), that number is an astounding 26 storms with 9 becoming hurricanes and 3 of those major hurricanes. For comparison's sake, a 'normal' season only has 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes and almost 3 of those becoming major hurricanes (a major hurricane is a category 3 storm with sustained winds over 111 mph). 

As far as the West Coast/Eastern Pacific goes, we've only had a couple storms give us swells this summer here in SD. That would be Hurricane Karina and Hurricane Marie.

We've had 14 named storms, only 4 hurricanes, but 3 have those were major hurricanes. For comparison's sake, a normal season would have 15 named storms, 7 of those hurricanes, and 3 of those major hurricanes. Being that we're in the middle of a La Nina, the slightly below normal activity is expected (unfortunately). But fear not- the official season ends on November 30th so we still have time. 

BUT... historically speaking, most of our hurricanes will have already formed by October 15th and the last of the major hurricanes by September 20th. Let's hope history is wrong! 

PIC OF THE WEEK:

I literally think that lip is taller than the wave. No seriously- that's a 6' lip and a 4' wave. Hope you know how to duck dive. Like real deep. 

 

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn

Polished

Runnin' With The Devil  

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