Surf Blog

Last Updated: 11:16 PM GMT on November 17, 2009 — Last Comment: 5:01 AM GMT on November 04, 2009

	The Waves, They Came.

Posted by: redtim, 9:18 PM GMT on November 02, 2009

The waves finally came back to Northern California this weekend, and in a way that has become fairly typical this Northern Hemi swell season. Swell models predicted a slowly rising swell building throughout the day Sunday morning and peaking some time today. In reality, when I got down to the beach around 9 am on Sunday morning, the swell had pretty much showed its full force, with well overhead set waves rolling through at San Francisco's Ocean Beach.

Even though the waves had some decent size, they weren't breaking that well, and there was a wicked current pulling you south off of the peak. A few good rides were had, but the wind started picking up by about 11 am and conditions deteriorated even further.

The swell continued to rise into Monday morning, but the period started to drop and with the shortening period, the energy level of the swell dropped too. The waves remained in the overhead + range on Monday at the top exposures, but reports from the beach were of less than stellar conditions.

Looking into the future, it appears that a monster swell may be on the horizon for this weekend.

This would be the first massive swell to hit California this season, and it could be a doozy.

Swell Height

Swell Period

The first image shows swell heights approaching 5 meters, or 16 feet! The period at the time is around 17 seconds, so if this pans out as expected, we can expect to see some major swell hitting the coast this weekend, most likely causing damage at the coasts, and certainly closing out most everywhere you could think of to surf.

One place that will most likely not close out is Mavericks in Half Moon Bay, California. And this year the famed contest has its waiting period open for this year's first monster swell. In a surprising twist, this swell may not actually trigger the contest... The Mavericks contest is for paddle in surfing, and these waves could simply be too large to paddle into. If that is the case the contest won't go off.

for a taste of how big it can get down in Half Moon Bay, here is a shot from Jan 4 2006, one of the biggest days I have seen down there.

"Big Wednesday"

From surfermag.com
Link

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1. Skyepony 11:07 PM GMT on November 02, 2009
It would be a shame if the waves were too big for the contest. Nice pic for Big Wednesday.

2. redtim (Admin) 11:35 PM GMT on November 02, 2009
Even if the contest doesn't go this weekend, it should happen this winter, El Nino should send us plenty of big waves!

3. jimmiek 5:01 AM GMT on November 04, 2009
Careful. The NCEP wave model overpredicts long swell.

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