Summertime-like South Swell Pattern Lining Up For Southern California

Best Bets

• Sunday morning between Oceanside and San Clemente where a clean 16 second ground swell should produce 3-4-foot waves.
• Coronado Beach in San Diego from Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning when the same ground swell could produce 4-foot waves.
• Saturday morning looks good or Oceanside, San Clemente, and Ventura where the southwest ground swell will likely produce 3-foot waves with 16 second periods

FRIDAY

Friday morning kicks off with lingering northwest wind swell coupled with weak southwest ground swell. This should make for some pretty nice waves along our southwest facing shores. The southwest ground swell appears to be slightly stronger than the wind swell so we can expect larger waves in Oceanside/San Clemente than in San Diego. Waves range between about 2-3-feet in these locations with the south facing shore of Ventura and LA Counties also getting in on 2-3-foot waves for Friday morning.

The ground swell picks up in intensity while the wind swell continues backing off as we progress through the day. South and southwest facing shorelines look great for surfing on Friday afternoon while San Diego and other west-faces miss out on most of the waves. Periods look pretty good at about 13 seconds with a light onshore wind picking up in the evening after experiencing calm conditions for most of the day.

SATURDAY

The southwest swell continues to grow into Saturday while the wind swell continues dying off. Widespread 3-foot waves are expected along most of the coast between Oceanside up to San Clemente and in isolated regions south of Ventura. Periods are expected to be great at around 16 seconds across the area with winds coming down from Friday evening. Saturday morning looks like a great time to surf if you can make it to the right spots.

Waves sort of fluctuate in size as we head into the afternoon along our southwest facing shores. For the most part, the southwest swell will decrease from the morning into the afternoon before increasing just slightly by the evening. This fluctuation will hardly be noticeable as waves honestly don't change by much compared to their morning heights. Periods stay nice at 16 seconds with another moderate onshore breeze expected Saturday evening.

SUNDAY

The southwest ground swell increases just slightly as we head into Sunday morning. Despite this, waves really won't look much different from that of Saturday evening and really the rest of the weekend too. San Clemente and Oceanside will get the best waves at 3, maybe 4-feet with the second-best waves occurring along the south facing shore of Ventura County at 2-3-feet. Everyone else, except Coronado Beach in San Diego where 4-foot waves are possible, will see 2-foot and under heights.

Wave heights peak in the late morning before slowly coming down afterwards. Again, this will be a very minor decrease and evening waves really won't look much different from the morning waves. Periods stay clean at 16 seconds with another weak to moderate onshore wind once again expected for the evening.