Large N Pacific Swell

The first truly substantial N Pacific storm is creating swell for Hawaii, California, and Baja Mexico. The storm is running 955 mBar, and positioned west of the dateline, and north of Hawaii. Swell between 40 and 50 feet is predicted today, and this means

1) Hawaii will go extra large on Friday, with swell between 15 and 20 feet at Hawaii with peak energy at 17 seconds hitting early Friday morning.

2) The swell energy will spread out for California, with 25 second energy beginning to pound the coastline late Saturday night and the swell height 10-15 feet, and continuing through the weekend. The swell would be larger except that it will encounter offshore winds en route due to high pressure settling back in. Sunday morning will likely bring peak surf window for this swell in California.

This ought to be large enough for Jaws to go off the scale, the Eddie to be held, and the Mavericks contest to be held.

Or at least for everyone to have lots of fun surfing spots that rarely fire.

Dave, Thanks much for reporting this! Also, this weekend we are going to surf the homeland of your great hero of all time, Richard Milhouse Nixon!

I will think of you as we surf Cottons! (I guess California has taken a turn for the (worst) er, 'Left'..... just kidding.)

craig

This was posted today (Wednesday the 10th), which makes me wonder 'what about the swell we're getting right now?' The forecasters are calling the weekend swell to be smaller than this one, which I'll go ahead and call our first real winter swell, as opposed to the really fun super-clean perfect fall-type surf we've been getting.

Here is a copy of my Northern California Forecast posted yesterday.

Begin copy

<< I will think of you as we surf Cottons! (I guess California has taken a turn for the (worst) er, 'Left'..... just kidding.)

craig >>

be careful out there. lp

<< Also, this weekend we are going to surf the homeland of your great hero of all time, Richard Milhouse Nixon!

I thought Cotton's really only broke (lined up) during a strong south?

Like BoBo

Our current system is more local smaller, and has much weaker fetch. 25-30 ft seas at the center. That is a ton of energy when it is right on top of you.

Sunday we get pure 20+ second period swell about 12 ft. It will be MUCH more rideable, being generated ~2000 miles away. The storm is generating 40-50 ft seas at its center, and will send 15-20 ft SWELL (mixed 14-25 second periods) in Hawaii Friday. The pressure is really low at 955 mBar, and the fetch is huge. This is a monster storm.

See http://blakestah.com/surf/

for a jpeg pic of the storm near its pic, and our current rain producer last night. The photo is mislabeled for Hawaii - the swell hits Friday morning at its peak, and Sunday morning in Northern California (midday in SoCal).

John, I was just kidding. Dave had been writing a lot about political issues and while I was thanking him for posting the report I was teasing him about Nixon. San Clemente was Nixon's home and Cottons was close by.

I am hoping to find more protected places to surf. Sound to me like it is out of hand there now! craig

Swamis.

But even at 20+ faces, 4 guys on every wave. I'll be there if the sun comes out.