THE Surf Report

Spring is soooooo predictable.

SURF:
That was a pretty fun S swell  this week. The weather finally cooperated and far north county SD and the OC had overhead sets. Life is good.

Today we only have leftover S swell for waist high+ sets around town and the OC has some chest high sets. There's no NW in the water unfortunately so it's pretty walled at the beachbreaks. Saturday looks pretty small around here but we do have great beach weather lining up (more on that below). By late Sunday we should see a little bump from the NW windswell (mainly in SD) and we get a new small SW building late Sunday (mainly in the OC). All in all some great weather this weekend but not much surf- unless you want to wait for a little waves late Sunday.

Tides the next few days are 0' at sunrise, up to 4' at 11am, down to 1' at 4pm, and up to 4' again at sunset. Water temps are finally feeling like spring with 62 degree readings around southern California. Make sure to keep up to date on the waves/weather at Twitter/North County Surf.

FORECAST:

After a slow weekend of surf, things start to kick into gear Monday as the NW windswell continues to build and the SW starts to send some good sets our way in the afternoon. By Tuesday it should be pretty darn good as the SW is hitting it's stride and the NW windswell continues to build. Sets most everywhere will be head high+ and best S facing spots will be overhead.

By Wednesday the SW has peaked and the NW windswell will be peaking too. Unfortunately (here it comes) we have a weak cold front coming through on Monday/Tuesday so the low clouds may stick around at the beaches and we'll have some SW wind. Isn't that just Murphy's Law?!

After that, there's another storm trying to form under Australia/NZ that may get into our window. If it holds, we may get more SW towards next Sunday.

WEATHER:

Looks like we have a great weekend setting up (sans the surf of course). High pressure is setting up today and we should have minimal low clouds/fog this weekend and sunny days at the beaches. Air temps should hit 70. There's yet another weak low pressure system moving through northern California early next week and it will deepen our low clouds/fog down here Monday and Tuesday. Should bring a little SW wind with it too. After that, high pressure sets up again and the 2nd half of next week should be sunny with temps in the low 70's. Again. Sounds good.

BEST BET:
Should be good surf late Monday into Wednesday from both the NW and SW directions but Wednesday may be the day with the weather finally clearing up.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

Had a good S swell earlier this week thanks to a fairly strong storm that set up shop off South America; directly beneath us. The result was a swell that looked like it came from a hurricane off Baja- a unique angle that was almost moving sideways up the beach with really long lefts. The only difference was that the interval was a lot longer due to it’s southern hemisphere origins. So it got me thinking… when are we due for some hurricane surf? And can you believe it- the Eastern Pacific Hurricane season starts in 3 weeks. Yes, hard to believe May 15th is the official start date by the National Hurricane Center. But if you have an El Nino year- like 2012 was shaping up to be- they can start fairly early. Case in point- our water in the Eastern Pacific was fairly warm last year so it was no problem for tropical storms to start forming early.

Tropical Storm Aletta actually formed a day before the official start to the season- May 14th- and peaked with 50mph winds. Right on its heels was a big Category 3 Hurricane named Bud that started May 20th and peaked with 115mph winds. Amazing to think that in just a few weeks we could actually get hurricane surf around here. What the heck happened to winter?! In all honesty though, we’re in a neutral pattern right now (no warm El Nino and no cold La Nina) so there’s not much of a chance of the water warming up abnormally fast down there. I don’t expect a hurricane swell until at least early June. But what about the rest of the season if we’re only expected to have normal water temperatures? Glad you asked.

In a normal year, we usually get 15 named storms of which about ½ turn into hurricanes. BUT… those hurricanes have to be aimed towards us to give us swell (i.e moving N towards California instead of W towards Hawaii). So maybe we’ll get 4 little tropical storms aimed our way to give us surf (namely Orange County) and 4 hurricanes will give San Diego and Orange County some waves. And there’s roughly 3 storms in a normal year which are Category 3 or stronger (115mph+) so San Diego may see 1 of those aimed our way and Orange County may get a couple in a normal year. Long story short, I expect SD to see 3-4 good swells with 1 of those firing and the OC to pick up a couple more little tropical swells. The National Hurricane Center will have their ‘official’ forecast for the upcoming Eastern Pacific Hurricane season towards the end of May so may sure to check back on the North County Surf blog for the latest updates.

BEST OF THE BLOG:

Seems as though I was asleep on the blog, err, job lately. There's been a lot of construction going on recently at the former Ecke property on Saxony Blvd. just north of the YMCA. I thought all was quiet on the western front and they weren't going to build houses on that 100+ acre property. Well was I wrong. 69 new homes are being built on 20 of the acres Check out the full story on the North County Surf Blog as well as 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:

I went to Ireland back in the late 90's and the surf industry consisted of 1 shop in Lahinch and more sheep on the beach then surfers. Today Ireland boasts surf clubs, hellmen tackling cold water slabs, and- wait for it- a pro surfer on the ASP's World Championship Tour (Glenn 'Micro' Hall for those of you more interested in the NBA and NFL). Seems hard to believe that with waves like today's Pic of The Week, it took so long for the surf scene to explode over there.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Auto Pilot
Prior Hamburglar Conviction
President Margo Oberg Fan Club