QuikCAST
Surf Forecast - Southern California
5 Day Surf Forecast
Forecast
Updated:
Thursday, May 15, 2008 8:44 PM
GMT
Surf Scale: 3 ft = waist high, 4 ft = chest high, 5 ft = head high, 10 ft =double overhead Swell Direction is direction swell is coming from. 90°=East, 180°=South, 270°=West, 360-0 = North
Southern California Surf Forecast (Centered on Dana Point)
Day
Trend
Wind
(kts)
Details
(Swell Number, Swell Size & Period, Arrival Time and Profile)
Waves
(Set wave max face height)
Swell Direction
Friday
5/16
Holding
E 5 early
New swell from the Gulf to 2.4 ft @ 12 secs
2.5 ft
305 degrees
Saturday
5/17
Up slightly
SW 5 early
New Gulf swell 2.7 ft @ 13 secs early at exposed breaks
3.5 ft
300 degrees
Sunday
5/18
Down some
S 10 early
Gulf swell 2.1 ft @ 12 secs
2.5 ft
300 degrees
Monday
5/19
Up slightly
S 5 early
New southern hemi swell 2 ft @ 15 secs late
2.5-3.0 ft
175 degrees
Tuesday
5/20
Up some
S 5 early
Southern hemi swell 3.6 ft @ 14-15 secs late
4.5-5.0 ft
175 degrees
Extended
Outlook
Up some
---
The North Pacific jetstream continues to looking decent with a respectable flow pushing west to east over the dateline at 150 kts with a fading trough north of Hawaii feeding into a large ridge over the eastern Gulf of Alaska and US West Coast. The trough continues offering some support for surface level low pressure development. A late season surface gale developed north of Hawaii Tuesday (5/13) in this trough with 40-45 kts winds for 24 hours generating 28-30 ft seas aimed well at California and points north of there. Swell from this system is in the water pushing east, expected to hit the US West Coast on Friday (5/16). Down south a very quiet pattern remains in effect for the greater South Pacific with the jetstream split and displaced to the south. A cutoff low was off northern Chile Mon-Fri (5/16) producing 45-50 kt winds and 28-30 ft seas over a tiny area aimed into the Southern California swell window but generally too far east to affect breaks north of there. Swell arrival expected late Monday (5/19) for exposed breaks in SCal and HI. Typhoon Rammsun peaked out on Saturday (5/10) 600 nmiles south of Southern Japan with winds to 135 kts, but too far away to have any real potential. Of note: The Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) remains in the active phase, which has likely been fueling both tropical development in the far Western Pacific and the dateline-gale activity of late. It has peaked-out this week, and is expected to slowly fade through next week. One more gale is scheduled for the dateline mid-next week before the North Pacific goes into hibernation for the summer. Otherwise local north windswell expected back in the forecast mid-next week too.