Could be better, could be worse. Again.
SURF
Pretty fun surf this week. We had some SW early in the week that was combined with NW windswell midweek and we had peaks all over the place. The NW winds have been blowing the last few days and we’ve had some steady windswell that’s been biggest in south county SD. Last night the NW winds kicked up a notch and we have more NW windswell filling in today. Most spots in northern SD/OC are shoulder to head high. South SD has overhead sets and south OC is chest high. NW winds are continuing to blow today and the NW picks up another foot tonight. Early Saturday morning should pick up another foot in most areas. High pressure is starting to set up so we may have some strong N winds Saturday switching to offshore NE on Sunday. The windswell on Sunday starts to drop and SD has some chest high waves with small waves for the OC. With all the wind unfortunately, the water temps have dropped again and are back in the high 50’s. Time to break out the 4/3 again. Tides the next few days are about 4’ at 9am, 0’ at 2pm and back to 4’ at sunset. Make sure to keep up to date on the surf and conditions at
Twitter/North County Surf.
FORECAST
The upcoming week isn’t looking all that exciting. Monday is pretty small and Tuesday the NW windswell may pulse up slightly but only chest high waves for SD. The second half of the week looks even smaller. There may be some background SW swell but mainly in the waist high range; hopefully slightly bigger towards Thursday. Kind of a boring week. Except for the weather- more on that below.
WEATHER
Great weather this week was replaced by patchy fog today and cooler temperatures. After temps in the high 70’s Wednesday/Thursday, today we’ll only be in the mid-60’s. More than 10 degrees cooler. The low clouds will be replaced by sun Saturday as high pressure sets up and temperatures rebound slightly. N winds should kick in though around 15 mph. By Sunday the winds turn offshore from the NE and we have plenty of sun and temps in the mid-70’s. Early next week we hit low to mid-80’s at the beaches. Can’t complain. Things cool slightly for the second half of next week but nice weather is still forecasted.
BEST BET
Probably Saturday. We have good head high+ NW windswell in the forecast and the sun should come back out with air temps near 70. Get it early though as the N winds are forecasted to blow. Next Tuesday would be my second pick with a little bit of NW windswell and temps above 80.
NEWS OF THE WEEK
Notice all the pelicans taking flight lately? You’re not the only one. The
San Diego Union Tribune newspaper did a little investigating and found… more pelicans. No one’s sure of the reason there’s so many this season but since they were once endangered, no one’s complaining they’ve come back in a big way. Unless of course you own ocean front property and they’re making a mess of your patio furniture. Here’s what the UT newspaper uncovered: “Torrey Pines State Beach lifeguard Ed Vodrazka has never seen anything like it in his 35 years on the job. He’s never seen this many pelicans soaring over San Diego, occasional flocks of more than 100 at a time, smaller flocks every few minutes. “The numbers are incredible,” Vodrazka said. “Literally thousands and thousands of pelicans are off our coast right now. It’s unprecedented.” Up and down the county’s coastline, people shared the same point of view Tuesday. Seabird specialists said if pelicans are more plentiful now — and they lack sure evidence — it may be because of an abundant food supply and adverse breeding conditions in Mexico. For nearly 40 years, from 1970 to 2009, the federal government considered the brown pelican an endangered species. The bird’s population has climbed over the past 25 years to about 190,000 in California as pollutants such as DDT, so dangerous to the species, were phased out and conservation efforts succeeded. Brown pelicans now fly in large numbers from the Columbia River in the north to Mexico. Charles Gailband, director of conservation at the Chula Vista Nature Center, said it’s been “a tremendous recovery in the past decade.” Even so, he and other experts cautioned that the pelican population may only appear to be larger this year, the same way one summer seems warmer than another before a comparison of average temperatures. Yet for many, seeing is believing. Gretchen Sloan, a retired flight attendant who has lived in Solana Beach for six years, said she’s given up cleaning the cushions on her wooden deck furniture. She’s storing them inside the house for the time being. “I am absolutely smothered in bird you know what,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find out over the Internet what’s going on and when these birds are going to be gone because, honestly, you can’t go outside. You can’t have people over. You can’t be on the deck. It’s a shame. It’s just running down my windows.” Rob Hitchcock of Escondido went camping on South Carlsbad State Beach last week with his family and was astonished by all the pelicans along the bluffs. “It was like the Battle of Britain up there,” he said. “We counted up to 50 pelicans in one formation, and boy did they make a mess of our tent and cars, and on a couple occasions hit myself, my wife and my youngest son.” At the Torrey Pines Gliderport, manager Jeremy Bishop is more focused on the birds’ majesty, calling this year’s winged masses “an amazing influx.” “The consensus out here is it’s got to be the food supply,” he said. “It seems like most of them are heading south, especially in the morning. We’re all guessing some type of abundant food supply.” There doesn’t seem to be more fish in San Diego than in years past, said John Hyde, a biologist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla. But Laird Henkle, an environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Game, said it may be that sardines and anchovies are in short supply in Mexican waters. “The bottom line is (the birds) go where the food is” — even if that disrupts breeding patterns, Henkle said. Several scientists said the pelicans’ breeding season starts as early as November and runs until June. Many breed in Mexico, then fly north when their young are ready, and one way to guess at whether breeding has a role in any influx is to observe the bird’s bellies and crowns. Young pelicans have brown heads and white bellies, while adults have white heads. A large number of young birds could mean an early successful breeding season, while a large number of adults could mean the opposite. Daniel Anderson, a recently retired professor of avian ecology at the University of California Davis who has specialized in pelicans for four decades, said reports of plentiful pelicans along the state’s shores are plentiful themselves. “If there’s an actual increase in May, it usually indicates some breeding failure somewhere or it means that the birds are following food closer to shore for some reason,” Anderson said. Even if no one knows for sure whether or why there are more pelicans this year, San Diegans may have learned something else, Anderson said. “If they do have some birds around there, feeding and active in that area, they’re lucky,” he said. “Nice to have them around.”
BEST OF THE BLOG
Can’t get enough Parko? Check out the Clip of the Day with Joel absolutely tearing it up recently on the Gold Coast. Or if he’s not the one you worship, check out the Holy ‘graffiti’ in Encinitas before the atheists take it down this weekend. That and more in the North County Surf blog below!
PIC OF THE WEEK
Wouldn’t you know one of the coolest Indo shots I’ve seen in a long time came from a surf shop and travel website from the UK's
Errant Surf Shop Small world. 20 years ago there weren’t even surf shops in the UK. Ok, maybe 1. But seriously, surfing is everywhere nowadays. 3rd world countries like Brazil are churning out WCT title hopefuls, British Columbia is a surf destination now, and I get my stoke from a shop in the UK. Never would have thunk it in a million years.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Prognosticator
MC MG At Kate and Will’s Reception
2011 XXL Monster Barrel Nominee
