I have to admit, being a Southern California surfer the last few days are starting to make me go a bit stir crazy. And really SoCal isn’t the only region in the Pacific that has been having frustrating surf sessions. Hawaii has been struggling through a pretty consistent lack of summer S swell, and even the Pacific NW on down through Point Conception, which has had swell, has been getting worked by the seemingly never-ending NW windswell.
Unfortunately for the next few days the forecast isn’t really showing any improvement. The North Pacific is pretty much shut down by the high-pressure and the SPAC isn’t doing us any favors (well at least not yet).
Long range is looking better for both the Tropics and the South Pacific. There is a chance in the short term that a new tropical storm could form down by Mainland Mexico, that could get the surf going in the matter of a few days. The South Pacific is percolating with some storms starting to mix together around New Zealand….and another closer system off the Coast of Chile. Both of these storms should have waves heading our way but it is going to take a least a week before they arrive at even the more southerly areas in Central America and a few days longer than that before actually hitting the beach in Southern California.
Ok onto the details…
North Pacific
To put it bluntly high pressure is still kicking the crap out of the storm track in the North Pacific.
There is a little gap up along the North side of the high-pressure that is letting some storm action through into the northern parts of the Gulf of Alaska….but the high-pressure has it forced so far north that there has been almost no storm activity positioned to send much more than minor NW swell to anywhere but the extreme Pacific NW and Canada.
The breaks further south will see mostly windswell, with some sizeable chop holding along the coast…but this windswell corridor is pretty North and South…so not very many breaks will be able to pick it up and only a pale shadow of the energy will make it down around point conception.
Basically we can expect no real significant swell from this region…and none expected any time soon.
East Pacific Tropics
There is a couple of areas of activity starting to spin around…in the tropics…with one near Cabo about to get reclassified as a tropical depression…maybe stronger. Chances are good that this one will pop in about 24-36 hours…possibly getting into a swell generating position rather quickly…but also hitting cold water and a strengthening shearline pretty fast as well, which could kill off any swell before it gets started. Sometimes I hate the tropics.
South Pacific
Like I mentioned in the beginning of this forecast the storms in the SPAC have been pretty underwhelming. About the only region doing relatively well is Central America…the window has stayed pretty open for that area. It hasn’t been huge, but it hasn’t shut down like the rest of the West Coast.
Fortunately over the next few days we have a lot more storm systems forming in the South Pacific. There is low over by Chile that will send up a playful S-SSW swell for around the 9-10th. Nothing massive, but overhead for many Central America standouts and even a few bigger sets at the standout deepwater spots.
Even further down the road there is a cool little bit of tropical/sub-tropical mixing that the charts are showing pulling together in about 5-6 days. This looks like it is going to get a good run at our swell window…as these two storms bridge the gap across the higher/lower latitudes they are going to push the high-pressure out of position and let this storm develop a bit more than it would have on its own.
If these two storms pull together the way the models are showing we could see a little burst of S swell around the 8-11th and then a bigger SSW-SW (190-215) hitting closer to the 17-19th (depending on where you area). We still have a long wait to see if these storms even develop…so I will be keeping an eye on the region pretty closely as these begin to pull together. Cross your fingers that maybe the tropics, the SPAC, and the NPAC…all come alive at the same time…I know I could do with some combo swell. ☺
The Next Long-range forecast will be posted on Tuesday, September 7, 2010.
Adam Wright
Surf Forecaster
solspot.com
