Cold Water = Hot Waves
SURF:
I love it when we get a few days of swell around here and I act like all of those other months that were flat never happened. Great week for surf- if you didn't mind a little wind, colder than usual water temps, and overcast skies.
Today we had a new overhead SW fill in with mostly walled conditions unless you surfed a reef, jetty, or point. For Friday into the weekend, the SW drops but still will be fun. We also get a slight bump from NW wind/groundswell late Saturday into Sunday.
Sunday also sees another smaller SSW fill in. Long story, look for smaller shoulder high sets Friday, touch smaller Saturday, then fun combo swell on Sunday for more shoulder high sets. And here are the tides, sunrise/sunset, and water temps for the next few days:
- Sunrise and sunset:
- 5:47 AM sunrise
- 7:44 PM sunset
- Water temps unfortunately are still cool to cold with all the NW wind lately. Temps are low 60's at best.
- For comparison's sake, we should be close to mid-60's by now while the rest of the Pacific is above average AND we're headed towards El Nino. Something smells fishy...
- And tides are extreme before sunrise and after sunset, but mellow midday:
- almost -1' at sunrise
- about 3' mid-day
- 2' late afternoon
- and up to 5' at sunset
FORECAST:
The combo swells from Sunday roll into Monday for more shoulder high surf- with the NW being more dominant. Tuesday looks to have mainly chest high sets from NW windswell towards SD. After that, things go quiet for awhile as the 2nd half of next week should be small.
Next storm up could form this weekend off Antarctica and South America which would give us a straight shot of S swell towards the 28th- hopefully in the head high range again.
WEATHER:
Going to be honest here- not a big fan of spring. In particular- low clouds and fog. I either like it stormy or sunny. Fog is just so... boring. Until our water temps warm up, we're going to be stuck with this May Gray. Models indicate weak low pressure setting up the 2nd half of next week which will increase the depth of the marine layer- but I'm also hoping it may break up the clouds by at least late afternoon. Here's a quick rundown on the next 7 days:
- Friday to Tuesday: Mostly cloudy. Temps 67/57
- Wednesday to next weekend: Partly sunny. Temps... 67/57
If anything changes between now and then, make sure to follow North County Surf on Twitter!
BEST BET:
Friday with leftover SSW or Monday with fun combo swell.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
As you know, San Diego County is no stranger to beach erosion. From the big cliff collapse at Blacks Beach this winter, to the train tracks in Del Mar perched precariously on the cliff, to the sand vanishing along most beaches this winter. But is the erosion happening faster than normal, slower than normal, or is it at a steady pace? I'll let Stanford researchers shed some light on the subject:
In parts of California's iconic mountainous coasts, breathtaking beauty is punctuated by brusque signs warning spectators to stay back from unstable cliffs. The dangers of coastal erosion are an all-too-familiar reality for the modern residents of these communities. Now, with a new tool, researchers are bringing historical perspective to the hotly debated topic of how to manage these disappearing coastlines.
Using a model that incorporates measurements of the amount of time coastal cliffs and their remnant deposits were exposed at the Earth's surface, Stanford researchers found that the rate of cliff erosion in the past 100 years is similar to that of the past 2,000 years. The proof-of-concept, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface April 17, opens the possibility of using this new approach to understand the long-term history of coastal cliff erosion, or retreat, in other parts of the state. The work was conducted in Del Mar, California, a beach town in San Diego County with infrastructure atop its coastal bluffs.
"In this particular location, these cliff erosion rates have been the same for thousands of years, so we shouldn't expect them to get lower," said senior study author Jane Willenbring, an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. "If anything, we should expect them to be higher in the future."
Del Mar is among locations that are critically important for understanding cliff retreat. Homes are situated up to 70 feet above its beach, in addition to public infrastructure. A major railroad between Los Angeles and San Diego runs atop the coastal bluffs, where cliff failures have resulted in several derailments in modern history, as well as rock fall events that led to closures in recent years.
"I think this study bolsters the thinking that we should do something about cliff retreat sooner rather than later," said lead study author Travis Clow, PhD '22.
A natural laboratory
The study area was ideal for the researchers' methodology because the Del Mar beach features a narrow shore platform, the bedrock where tidepools are typically found. Using nine samples of bedrock, the co-authors measured concentrations of the chemical isotope beryllium-10 that track landform exposure to cosmic radiation from space. The data were compared with cliff retreat rates from recent studies based on aerial photography, showing that coastal erosion rates have remained relatively constant over the past two millennia -- at about 2 to 5 inches per year.
In parts of California's iconic mountainous coasts, breathtaking beauty is punctuated by brusque signs warning spectators to stay back from unstable cliffs. The dangers of coastal erosion are an all-too-familiar reality for the modern residents of these communities. Now, with a new tool, researchers are bringing historical perspective to the hotly debated topic of how to manage these disappearing coastlines.
Using a model that incorporates measurements of the amount of time coastal cliffs and their remnant deposits were exposed at the Earth's surface, Stanford researchers found that the rate of cliff erosion in the past 100 years is similar to that of the past 2,000 years. The proof-of-concept, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface April 17, opens the possibility of using this new approach to understand the long-term history of coastal cliff erosion, or retreat, in other parts of the state. The work was conducted in Del Mar, California, a beach town in San Diego County with infrastructure atop its coastal bluffs.
"In this particular location, these cliff erosion rates have been the same for thousands of years, so we shouldn't expect them to get lower," said senior study author Jane Willenbring, an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. "If anything, we should expect them to be higher in the future."
Del Mar is among locations that are critically important for understanding cliff retreat. Homes are situated up to 70 feet above its beach, in addition to public infrastructure. A major railroad between Los Angeles and San Diego runs atop the coastal bluffs, where cliff failures have resulted in several derailments in modern history, as well as rock fall events that led to closures in recent years.
"I think this study bolsters the thinking that we should do something about cliff retreat sooner rather than later," said lead study author Travis Clow, PhD '22.
A natural laboratory
The study area was ideal for the researchers' methodology because the Del Mar beach features a narrow shore platform, the bedrock where tidepools are typically found. Using nine samples of bedrock, the co-authors measured concentrations of the chemical isotope beryllium-10 that track landform exposure to cosmic radiation from space. The data were compared with cliff retreat rates from recent studies based on aerial photography, showing that coastal erosion rates have remained relatively constant over the past two millennia -- at about 2 to 5 inches per year.
"One of the advantages of this technique is that it gives you information at the time scales that are relevant for factors like sea-level rise," Willenbring said. "Our tool estimates retreat over time periods that include multiple major storms or atmospheric rivers that don't happen very often, but are critical in forming the coastline."
The researchers' approach explores the influence of different factors, including wave impacts and weathering that occur at the shore platform and the cliff interface.
"It does more than just spit out a retreat rate," said Clow, who processed the samples in Willenbring's lab and measured them at the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). "It also allows us to have a relative assessment of what might be driving cliff retreat over longer periods of time."
When rock becomes air
On sandy coasts, like those spanning much of the eastern U.S., beaches are shaped by waves that pull sand out to the ocean, then re-deposit it on land with the coming and going of the tides. But with rocky coastlines like those along California, once a cliff erodes into the ocean, it cannot be replaced, Willenbring said. Instead, it's as if the rock becomes air.
Willenbring was surprised to learn through this research that over half of all coastlines on Earth are eroding like California's. The scope of the problem, which will be exacerbated by sea-level rise in the next century, presents an opportunity for using this new technique in other areas.
"There are plenty of other places in California and the Pacific Northwest where active erosion of coastal rocky cliffs is happening, and we hope to use this technique in a wide variety of environments," Clow said.
Knowledge of cliff retreat in the U.S. is about 50 years behind research on the impacts of erosion and storms on sandy beaches, according to Willenbring -- and that makes her excited about contributing to fundamental science in this field.
"No one had even looked at how the beach width correlated with the rate of cliff retreat in California," Willenbring said. "There are a lot of open questions about what drives coastal erosion, and now we have a new tool to be able to address some of them."
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Witty
Finally Getting My Face On A Stamp
Developing An eSurfboard With Autopilot Feature. So If I'm Stuck At Work, At Least My Board Can Get Some Waves
Michael W. Glenn
Witty
Finally Getting My Face On A Stamp
Developing An eSurfboard With Autopilot Feature. So If I'm Stuck At Work, At Least My Board Can Get Some Waves
