SURF:
Bit of a mess earlier in the week due to a late winter storm but that was replaced by cleaner weather and a small SW swell yesterday. Today we just had leftover knee high+ SW swell and not much else.
For the weekend, we've got a storm moving by to the N and as it does, look for our clouds to increase, the sea breeze to be a little stronger Saturday and the NW ground/windswell will pick up. Friday starts off slow then by the afternoon we should see some chest high+ sets. Saturday may be a little bumpy but we could see shoulder high+ waves and bigger towards SD. On Sunday, the NW holds and we've got an early season SW filling in too. Hopefully the weather will be clean by then. All in all, some increasing surf this weekend from the NW/SW and questionable conditions. And here's the tides, sun, and water temps:
- Sunrise and sunset:
- 6:52 AM sunrise
- 7:00 PM sunset
- Water temps are only 58 due to all the NW wind lately. Once spring hits and the S 'fog' wind starts blowing, our water temps will consistently be above 60 (which typically doesn't happen for another month).
- And the tides this weekend aren't that impressive:
- 2' at sunrise
- 1' mid-morning
- 3' at sunset
FORECAST:
Interesting week next week as we've got off and on weak cold fronts moving by the N so the sea breeze will be mellow to breezy depending on the day.
As far as the swell goes, the SW that was building on Sunday will peak on Tuesday/Wednesday for chest high+ surf in N County SD and slightly better in the OC. Monday will be clean and then breezy on Tuesday. Wednesday looks to be clean again. Late next week we could see more SW arrive BUT... breezy conditions may arrive again due to another weak cold front. The bonus to all these weak cold fronts? Pretty much waist high+ NW windswell all next week to break up the SW swell.
WEATHER:
As mentioned above, looks like we've got weak cold fronts moving by to the N the next 7+ days and not much precipitation. Look for a little more clouds Friday/Saturday, breezy conditions, and cool temps. Sunday/Monday look to be cool again but sunny, then another weak front on Tuesday. Wednesday/Thursday? Nice and cool. And next weekend, maybe another weak front for more clouds and a blown out afternoon. If anything changes between now and then, make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf!
BEST BET:
Sunday with combo swell and potentially clean conditions. Or Wednesday with clean conditions again and fun SW swell.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Remember all those kelp beds in North County San Diego that kept our surf glassy all day long? Neither do I. Seems like eons ago. So where'd the go? Seems as though Northern California has the same problem. I'll let the San Francisco Chronicle explain:
The kelp forest that only eight years ago formed a leafy ocean canopy along the Northern California coast has almost completely disappeared, and scientists who study kelp and the species that depend on it are worried about its inability to bounce back.
A new study from UC Santa Cruz found that the kelp forest on the Sonoma and Mendocino coast has declined by an average of 95% since 2013. It analyzed satellite imagery going back to 1985 to investigate how a series of factors led to the kelp forest’s abrupt decline, including an explosion in the population of purple sea urchin, which eats it, and two marine heat waves. The research shows the unprecedented destruction was related to unusual ocean warming and that the kelp forest likely won’t recover any time soon, partly because removing the urchins is so difficult.
“They can actually survive under starvation conditions,” said Meredith McPherson, a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz’s Ocean Sciences department and coauthor of the study. “The impact has been that basically there is no kelp forest at all left, really.”
The kelp forest that only eight years ago formed a leafy ocean canopy along the Northern California coast has almost completely disappeared, and scientists who study kelp and the species that depend on it are worried about its inability to bounce back.
A new study from UC Santa Cruz found that the kelp forest on the Sonoma and Mendocino coast has declined by an average of 95% since 2013. It analyzed satellite imagery going back to 1985 to investigate how a series of factors led to the kelp forest’s abrupt decline, including an explosion in the population of purple sea urchin, which eats it, and two marine heat waves. The research shows the unprecedented destruction was related to unusual ocean warming and that the kelp forest likely won’t recover any time soon, partly because removing the urchins is so difficult.
“They can actually survive under starvation conditions,” said Meredith McPherson, a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz’s Ocean Sciences department and coauthor of the study. “The impact has been that basically there is no kelp forest at all left, really.”
Bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) usually thrives in the rocky coastal zones of Sonoma and Mendocino counties and creates a habitat for many types of fish and invertebrates, including abalone, sea urchin, jellyfish and sea snails. Its disappearance also has had impacts on local tourism and other businesses — the abalone fishery closed to recreational divers in 2018, and Mendocino County’s commercial red sea urchin fishery is almost completely shut down.
The two warm water events that helped cause the kelp forest’s decline include an El Niño and what was known as warm water “blob” that together lasted from 2014 to 2016. Around the same time, a wasting disease struck the sunflower sea star population, leaving the purple urchin without a predator.
Those urchins quickly took over, eating the remaining kelp and starving off two other species popular with divers and sushi lovers — red abalone and red urchin (purple urchin is not as commercially viable). What is left are called urchin barrens, rocky areas completely covered with the spiky purple invertebrates over hundreds of kilometers of the North Coast.
“What we’re seeing in Northern California is quite unprecedented in terms of its scale,” said Tristin McHugh, kelp project director at the Nature Conservancy’s California Oceans Program, which is developing pilot methods to remove purple sea urchins and restore kelp.
Though there was fear another warm water blob was forming last year off Alaska, water temperatures in the North Coast have returned to normal, McPherson said, and yet the bull kelp hasn’t recovered. Unlike other kelp native to California, it’s an annual species that dies off in winter, when it washes onto shore into piles that resemble long, green-brown hoses with bulbous tips. It normally returns each spring.
Scientists had already been monitoring the kelp forest’s decline for years with aerial photography and tidal data, but the new study was the first to use satellite imagery to more closely analyze changes in growth along with ocean temperature and nutrient levels. “We’re able to see kelp relatively easily from space using satellite,” McPherson said.
Bull kelp growth depends on cold upwellings in spring that bring nutrients to the surface, and those are reduced when water temperatures rise. Though previous El Niño events — a natural pattern that causes Pacific water temperatures to go up for a year or two — have also caused the kelp to decline, it has usually recovered.
What was different about 2014-16 was the purple urchin explosion and the addition of the warm water blob, which at its peak raised ocean temperatures by almost 7 degrees above average. While there’s some evidence that the blob was linked to climate change, what is more important is that marine heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense as global temperatures rise because of climate change, McPherson said.
Climate change, pollution and other factors are also blamed for the global decline of kelp forests over the past 20 years, but in California, it’s at its worst on the coast north of San Francisco. Monterey Bay and other parts of Central California have also lost kelp forest to urchin barrens, but those areas have a mix of bull kelp and giant kelp and also have sea otters that help prey on the urchins. In Southern California, where giant kelp is the main species, the forest has persisted better.
The most concerning part about the decline of the Sonoma-Mendocino kelp forest is that unless the sunflower sea star or another predator returns, the purple sea urchin shows no sign of budging.
“Usually some kind of physical disturbance or disease would wipe out the population,” McPherson said. “It could go on for decades and decades.”
The loss of their habitat to purple sea urchin is the reason the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2018 put a five-year pause on recreational fishing of red abalone, which usually brings recreational divers from all over California to the North Coast. As a result, the last dive shop in the area closed in Fort Bragg about a year ago.
Many out-of-work, professional red urchin divers have been hired in a state-sponsored program managed by the nonprofit Reef Check to remove purple urchin from the sea floor manually. It’s a slow process. In some cases, there are as many as 20 to 30 urchin per square meter of sea floor, and similar efforts in Norway, Japan and New Zealand have shown it’s necessary to get down to 2 per square meter for the kelp forest to recover, McHugh said.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Australia or New Zealand? Looks a lot like Angourie Point but there's not trees on the point. Anyone from Down Under reading this that can shed light on the subject? Promise I won't tell anyone. Promise...
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Superstar
My Bracket Is Still Perfect For The Next 12 Hours
Think I'm Going To Foil The Wedge Next Hurricane Swell
Michael W. Glenn
Superstar
My Bracket Is Still Perfect For The Next 12 Hours
Think I'm Going To Foil The Wedge Next Hurricane Swell
