Brief Overview
- THU 19th: New NW swell peaks in the PM with moderate side-offshore wind. Likely finals day.
- FRI 20th: Fading swell, strong offshore wind.
THURSDAY 19th: Building 5-7’ faces AM, 8-10’ faces PM. Offshore wind early trends side/offshore for the PM.
SWELL/SURF: New NW swell is expected to build through the morning should peak from mid day through the evening.
WIND: Light to moderate E trades in the early morning trend to the ENE and build for the afternoon in the 10-14kt range.
FRIDAY 20th: Fading 4-7’ faces AM, smaller PM. Building and strong offshore wind.
SWELL/SURF: NW to NNW swell fades through the morning with the strongest waves early. Reinforcing NNW to N swell builds during the afternoon and evening to level things off a bit at the sandbar and down through Off the Wall, although it primarily misses Pipe.
WIND: Rebuilding and becoming strong E trades.
Winter is here and so are the waves. For a limited time only, get access to Premium cams and forecasts free for 30 days. Try Surfline Premium Free for 30 Days.
Analysis
Our new, longer period NW swell (305-330) has been slowly building on Buoy 01 over the last few hours and looks very close to what we were expecting. This swell should build through the morning and peak from around mid day through the afternoon hours. Overhead surf is expected in the morning, with max sets building to double overhead by the afternoon. This would normally be a good direction and swell period for both Backdoor and Pipe, although the sand built up may prevent high-quality waves at Pipe, hopefully Backdoor will provide the goods.
Wind should ease a touch from today and looks light to moderate from the E in the earlier morning and then trends more sideshore to side-offshore ENE in the afternoon, moderate in strength around 10-14 knots.
For Friday we expect to see smaller surf in the morning and through at least the first half of the day as the swell trends down and also shifts more NNW in direction. Reinforcing NNW to N swell (340-360) should build late in the day to level the surf off although we don’t really expect much new size. Furthermore, this swell should show primarily at the sandbar and down through Off the Wall, generally missing Pipe.
E trades should rebuild through Friday and become strong during the afternoon hours.
Next Update: Thursday, December 19th (if necessary)