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

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