THE Surf Report

Groundhog Day.

SURF:
Even though we're a day early, it sure seems like Groundhog Day around here. Been a pretty predictable winter so far- nothing too big, a little bit of rain here and there, and then some cool sunny weather. Looks like the same for the upcoming week.

Currently we have just a little NW/SW in the water for knee to waist high waves and great weather. Saturday is looking pretty small too unfortunately.

We do though have more WNW filling in on Sunday and will have head high sets around town and overhead waves in SD. Central OC will have island blockage again and some waist high+ surf. At least the weather will be nice all weekend- even though you may have to wait 'til Sunday to get some surf. Water temps have finally stabilized to 57 degrees.

Tides the next few days are 1' at sunrise, 4' at noon, and down to 1' at sunset again. Make sure to keep up to date on the waves/weather at Twitter/North County Surf.

FORECAST:

Monday has peaking WNW swell for head high waves then by Thursday it's looking small. BUT... we do have new head high NW on the charts for next Friday into the weekend. BUT... looks like the storm that generated this swell will also give us rain/windy conditions.

We also have an out of season storm forming in the southern hemisphere which may give us chest high SW towards 2/10. Hopefully the stormy conditions up here next weekend will dissipate and allow the SW to filter in.

WEATHER:

Great weather on tap for the weekend. Again. Just some high clouds and temps near 70 at the beaches. Gotta love Southern California winters. That lasts into mid-week. By Thursday the clouds start to increase and we should get rain by Friday. It's still a long ways off, but hopefully we'll get a good soaking out of this one.

BEST BET:
Surf coming this Sunday and next Friday but the Friday swell should have some rain. Looks like this Sunday is the easy choice.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

Now that NOAA has dotted their ‘i’s’ and crossed their ‘t’s’ for their 2012 records, they’ve given us the official data to reflect on the past year. And it was busy. In particular:

The contiguous United States (CONUS) average annual temperature of 55.3°F was 3.2°F above the 20th century average, and was the warmest year in the 1895-2012 period of record for the nation. The 2012 annual temperature was 1.0°F warmer than the previous record warm year of 1998. Since 1895, the CONUS has observed a long-term temperature increase of about 0.13°F per decade.
Precipitation averaged across the CONUS in 2012 was 26.57 inches, which is 2.57 inches below the 20th century average. Precipitation totals in 2012 ranked as the 15th driest year on record. Over the 118-year period of record, precipitation across the CONUS has increased at a rate of about 0.16 inch per decade.

The 2012 North Atlantic hurricane season had 19 named storms, ten hurricanes, and one major hurricane. The number of named storms marked the third consecutive hurricane season with 19 named storms for the basin and tied with 2011, 2010, 1995, and 1887 as the third busiest year for North Atlantic tropical cyclones. An average season has 11 named storms, six hurricanes, and two major hurricanes (Category 3 strength or stronger). The number of named storms and storms that reached hurricane strength was above average, while the number of major hurricanes was below average. The 2012 season marked the lowest number of major hurricanes in the basin since 1997, which also had only one. There were no Category 4 or 5 storms during the season, only the third time this has occurred since 1995. Hurricane Michael, the only Category 3 hurricane of the season, retained major hurricane strength for 6 hours. One hurricane (Isaac), two tropical storms (Beryl and Debby), and one post-tropical storm with hurricane force winds (Sandy) made landfall during the season. No major hurricanes struck the U.S. coast, marking the seventh consecutive year without a major hurricane strike.

The 2012 Pacific hurricane season was a moderately active Pacific hurricane season. The season officially started on May 15 in the eastern Pacific, and on June 1 in the central Pacific, and ended on November 30; these dates conventionally delimit the period during which most tropical cyclones form in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. However, with the formation of Tropical Storm Aletta on May 14 the season slightly exceeded these bounds. Hurricane Bud intensified into the first major hurricane of the season, one of three to do so in the month of May. In mid-June, Hurricane Carlotta came ashore near Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Seven people were killed by Carlotta and damage amounted to $107.7 million. Hurricane Paul brought significant damage to Baja California Sur. Tropical Storms Hector, John, Kristy, and Norman, as well as Hurricanes Fabio and Miriam all threatened land; however, damage from these storms were relatively minor.

On the heels of one of the most destructive tornado years on record for the country (2011), tornado activity during 2012 was actually below average. During 2012, there were 878 confirmed tornadoes during January–October, with 58 tornado reports still pending for November and December according to data form the Storm Prediction Center. The 1991-2010 annual tornado average is 1,253 and 2012 marks the slowest tornado year since 2002 when there were 934 tornadoes. If the confirmed tornado count is below 935, depending on the confirmation rate of the end-of-year tornadoes, 2012 could be the slowest tornado year since 1989 which had 856 tornadoes. Despite the slower-than-average year for tornadoes, there were still several large, destructive, and deadly tornado outbreaks during the year. Three tornado outbreaks caused at least one billion dollars in damage and there were 68 tornado-related fatalities.

BEST OF THE BLOG:

All kinds of work going on around town. Last week Buffalo Wild Wings reared it's ugly head and this week there's a new mom and pop joint going in paying homage to Three's Company. Unfortunately Mr. Furley won't be running the joint but it still looks like a great place to grab a cold one. And they're almost done with the Swami's street crossing and plugging away at the Moonlight Beach redevelopment- check out the details on the North County Surf blog 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:

By now you've probably seen and drooled over tons of photos from Skeleton Bay, the unbelievably long sandbar left point in Namibia, Africa. But there's not a lot of aerial shots of the spot- mainly because it's pretty remote and renting planes/helicopters for photoshoots are hard to come by. That's why today's Pic of the Week is unique- you can get a real feel of how dredging and hollow this wave is. Even though you'll probably never surf this wave, today's pic at least let's you mind surf it.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Specialist
Up With People Cast Member Super Bowl XVI
Sold My Gas Guzzler And Ride The Foamball To Work Now