THelsley:
Come to think of it, does anybody else have a site they recommend for conditions?
Cheers,
I use a combination of sites. And still it's a tossup
Actually, I contend you can get a pretty good idea of present conditions and those in the next few days if you do some homework.
First, check
www.wetsand.com to get a global perspective of what storms might be heading our way and might affect the west coast. Typically, you'll see storms coming from the northwest (usually in winter) or from somewhere down south (usually in summer). However, wetsand doesn't account for the local effects of shadowing by the Channel Islands, local shoreline effects, etc. It's just a general idea of what's coming. But it might give you an idea if, for example, you're better off with south-facing beaches during a NW swell.
You can also get a good idea from the weather reports if a storm is headed our way. Usually a wind/rain front will result in bigger surf. Of course, as you can see today, it can be gorgeous and still have some sizeable surf. According to wetsand, this present south swell is due to "...a system that broke free from the strong grip of the southern jet near Antarctica and drifted northward to throw some energy our way. This one peaked with 35-foot seas about 4700 nautical miles from our shores..."
Next, you can get a 3 day forecast of local surf from CDIP:
CDIP 3 Day Orange County Forecast
This forecast accounts for swell direction and local shoreline effects (bathymetry, refraction, etc.), and often is fairly accurate. For example, it's showing Laguna Beach at about 4ft surf for the next few days, and based on reports that the beach is closed today and Laguna Sea Sports says "3 to 5 ft, long lulls", that looks about right. You can also check the
Laguna webcam. Unfortunately it looks like that webcam has been stuck on an old image for the last couple of days.
And finally, you can check realtime conditions by looking at various other webcams along the coast. For example, since this is a swell from 180 degrees (directly south), north facing beaches like Malaga should have the least swell, and CDIP agrees:
CDIP 3 Day LA County Forecast
Notice the notch in the plot just south of King Harbor. And you can check that in realtime at the
Surfline webcam. Actually, from the webcam it looks like there's some decent surf refracting around PV Point and coming into Malaga, so like I say sometimes it's a tossup.
And of course, check the reports here. Looks like MaxBottomtime just reported 3-6+ ft. at Marineland, which is almost directly south facing. This is consistent with CDIP, and based on their predictions it will hang that way for the next couple of days at least. It'll be interesting to see if that holds.
By the way, I also like to use Google Earth on occasion to get an idea of what direction a beach is facing and how the shoreline is shaped. I just love that Google Earth, man...
Also there's
www.watchthewater.org which has a bunch of LA County beach webcams from Nicholas Canyon down to the Redondo area. And there's the other
www.surfline.com webcams, if you can stand all the ads...
By the way, it looks like the folks who ventured up to Gaviota this weekend might be blessed with some of the smallest surf around if CDIP is correct. I'm guessing the reason is the effect of the Channel Islands shadowing the coast up there from the South swell. Cool !!!
