How much longer La Nina?
SURF:
After the firing surf and great weather in January, La Nina has finally taken hold in February.
Not much surf this past week but things will pick up in the next 7+ days. For Friday we have a weak cold front moving through which will give us chest high+ NW wind/groundswell and some NW winds unfortunately. Saturday morning the swell hangs around the winds back off.
Then... another cold front moves through Saturday evening into Sunday morning with overhead windswell and NW winds again. So look for waves but wind this weekend. Here's the tide, sun, and water temps for you diehards:
- Sunrise and sunset are exactly 11 hours apart! (not sure that means anything):
- 6:33 AM sunrise
- 5:33 PM sunset
- Water temps are still hanging around 57.
- And we've got a fairly big tide swing mid-morning through late afternoon:
- 3' at sunrise
- 6' mid-morning
- -0.5' late afternoon
- 1' at sunset
FORECAST:
After a bumpy weekend, forecast charts show another potential cold front moving through on Tuesday BUT... we have good surf coming. Hopefully the good outweighs the bad. So I'm taking a gamble here and firing up the Emergency Boardriding System. Jinx!
First up is a new S swell that took shape a couple days ago off Antarctica. Look for chest high swell from that one in north county SD on Tuesday.
Later that day, we also have new shoulder high NW arriving. Both swells will light up a lot of spots for head high+ surf into Wednesday morning. The NW backs off by Thursday but the S swell gets another reinforcement- so look for shoulder high sets towards north county SD into the OC. After that, the Pacific slows down slightly but we may see more chest high NW/SW next weekend. Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.
BEST BET:
Wind waves this weekend if you must or good combo swell Tuesday through Thursday (so basically Tuesday through Thursday).
WEATHER:
What looked promising for rain a few days ago is now turning out to be just a chance of showers and breezy on Friday and 1/10" of measurable precipitation at best along the coast. Saturday night's cold front was also downgraded to just some wind and not much else. So that's pretty much La Nina in a nutshell. Models show another weak cold front coming through on Tuesday and the 2nd half of next week should be cool and clear.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
The benefits of La Nina is that storms in the Pacific form off Japan, hit high pressure above Hawaii, and get pushed into Canada. The result? Good surf for us and sunny skies. The bad of course is the lack of rain we desperately need in Southern California. So when do we expect our weather systems to get back to normal in the Pacific? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can help answer that:
La Niña is still here of course, but forecasters estimate about a 60% chance that neutral conditions will return this spring. By the fall, the chance that La Niña will return is approximately equal to the chance that it will not.
The temperature of the ocean surface in the western equatorial region of the tropical Pacific, our primary El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) measurement, was just about 1.0°C (1.9°F) below the long-term average in January, according to the ERSSTv5 dataset. As of this month, the long-term average is calculated over 1991–2020. Of course, ENSO wouldn’t be ENSO without the coupling between the ocean and the atmosphere. In January, La Niña’s expected relationship—cooler-than-average ocean surface and a stronger-than-average Walker circulation—was clearly going hot and heavy. Evidence of this was provided by more rain and clouds over Indonesia and less over the central Pacific, stronger west-to-east winds aloft, and stronger east-to-west winds near the surface of the equatorial Pacific.
Although comfortably exceeding the La Niña threshold of more than 0.5°C cooler than average, the January index moved closer to average from December. Forecasters think this tendency will continue, and they estimate there’s about a 60% chance the index will move into neutral territory by April–June. The next most likely scenario—the remaining 40%—is a continuation of La Niña through the spring. What happens next fall is less clear. There is a wide range of possible outcomes shown by the computer model forecasts, but we’re getting into the spring predictability barrier, a time of year when model forecasts are less reliable. By the fall, chances of La Niña are about 50%, with approximately 40% chance of neutral and 10% chance of El Niño.
So what does this mean for us? Hopefully our water will warm up to normal levels this spring and hurricane surf will be at least average again. Phasing out La Nina this spring to a neutral pattern won't do much to our rainfall potential because we're pretty much out of our rainy season by May anyway. As far as the forecast for summer and fall goes, it would be great if there was a trend towards El Nino (warm water and above average hurricane surf), but as described above, we may be headed towards another La Nina. Not as strong as this one fortunately- but maybe a below average winter next year when it comes to rain? Hope not.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
What's more ominous? The cloudy island in the background or the eerily empty lineup? Who cares- you only live once- I'm out there!
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Glass Half Full Kinda Guy
Unpaid Stuntman
Wanted A Board With Rocker So My Shaper Had Dee Snyder Deliver It
