Swell Watch
From atop the bluff at Ponto this morning, I can see the gentle sweep of coast all the way up to San Onofre. It's a gorgeous, cool morning and the sun is out. But that's not why there's a small knot of surfers sitting on the sand and standing around in sweats and Ugg boots, looking at the waves.
An intense low has developed to the west/northwest of us, one that's already rocking the Hawaiian Islands with gigantic surf. It's forecast to hit here in the next 24 hours and everyone is on guard, waiting.
It's still flat at Ponto, but the swell period is long -- like 18 seconds.
Swell period, a measurement of time between successive waves in seconds as they pass a stationary point, is often as important as height. "It represents," writes surf forecast guru Sean Collins of Surfline, "how much a swell will wrap into a spot, how much the wave height will grow as the swell moves in from deep water to shallow water, and how fast a swell actually travels in deep water."
In other words, the three-foot at 18 seconds swell this morning makes all the talk about eight to ten foot waves hitting by tomorrow entirely believable.
It's been almost a year since the last enormous swell -- another West like this one -- closed out the entire coast, snapped dozens of boards, precipitated numerous helicopter rescues, and ended up killing some pretty good surfers.
It won't be that big, but we're due. Is this the calm before the storm?
Ponto, looking small and docile this morning, but the swell period tells another tale.
December 21, 2005: The biggest day along the coast in years and Swamis in Encinitas is all time -- and absolutely packed.
December 21, 2005: It got so big there were tales of grown men crying, too afraid or unable to fnd a way back to shore as the entire horizon went black with set after set of fifteen to eighteen-foot waves.
December 21, 2005: One set rolled through Swamis and snapped eight surfboards as the throngs scratched unsucessfully toward deeper water.
0 comments:
Post a Comment