Jambalaya
SURF:
FORECAST:
After the mixed bag of swell this weekend, we have some leftover NW on Monday. Then... nothing. Charts don't show anything of significance out there- either from the Aleutians, Antarctica, tropics, or Pt. Conception. Long story short- it's looking pretty small next week and nothing on the horizon for the short term.
WEATHER:
We had a storm from the Aleutians move down the Pacific the last few days and never really came on shore. In the meantime, it sucked in some tropical moisture and the last few days we've had some light soggy showers and fairly warm air temperatures. That departs tonight and we'll have some partly sunny cool conditions tomorrow. Next up is a small storm coming down from the Aleutians again and we'll get a shot at showers late Saturday into Sunday. No real rain from it but it will be colder than the current storm. After that we have some nice cool conditions for the first part of the week then models show maybe a weak cold front coming down the middle of the week- but it's only a 50/50 proposition at this point. BEST BET:
Today! Maybe not the cleanliest/sunniest conditions, but we do have good swell. And considering that Sunday's swell will be a little more junky AND it's looking small next week... get on it ASAP!
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Great surf last week from the aptly named 'Japan' swell. If you got some waves last week you probably noticed it was pretty inconsistent. This wasn't due to the wind starting and stopping during the formation of the storm, but rather the distance away from us that the storm formed. How far away was that storm? Japan of course. But why is windswell that forms off Pt. Conception so consistent and groundswell from a storm that forms off Japan (or New Zealand for that matter) so bloody INCONSISTENT?! It boils down to what I call 'Surfival of the Fittest'. (Catchy, huh)? Basically larger waves have more energy and travel faster. So during the formation of a storm the larger waves start to separate from the smaller ones. Kind of like a race; in the case of the 'Japan' swell, a 3,000 mile marathon. So what happened to the smaller 'windswell' type waves? Well, there's not a lot of energy associated with them, so they tend to fall apart before they get here. In the case of 'windswell' that forms off Pt. Conception, it's only traveling a couple hundred miles and doesn't have time to fall apart much, hence the short period waves we get from that source survive. On a side note, I generally tend to think of 'windswell' and 'groundswell' based on their wave period (wave period of course is the amount of time it takes single waves to pass a fixed spot- like a buoy). So consistent short period windswell I like to think of having a period of less than 12 seconds. And groundswell 13 seconds and above. So if you pay attention to the buoys at all, you can actually tell if a new swell is building, how consistent it is, etc. In the case of the 'Japan' swell last week, we had a few small days of small short period swell in the 12 second range before the 'Japan' swell arrived. Then the new 'Japan' swell started to hit our offshore buoys with a period of 25 seconds and BAM! I knew it was game on! BEST OF THE BLOG:
More signs the recession is over- Buffalo Wild Wings is coming to Encinitas! Ah, I can smell the grease now. Guess where I'll be during the Super Bowl? Check out all the news that's fit to print and of course a mid-week Surf Check AND an in-depth THE Surf Report. All of that and more in the blog below!
PIC OF THE WEEK:
It's amazing what Photoshop can do. Take for example today's 'Pic of the Week'. Those lefts are really only 2' but Photoshop made them look bigger. They even Photoshopped all the guys out of the line up. And those quaint boats in that little harbor? Fake. And that man-made road to the island? Used to be a bridge. All lies I tell you. Good luck finding this place. Doesn't really exist.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Man of the Hour
Tax Free
Inventor of the Wipeout
