BIG

Biggest swell of the winter to date is marching towards our shores tonight. Look for very large surf over the next 2-3 days. Peak of this event looks like Tuesday night into Wednesday with 18-20 ft deep water, long period swell - which will translate to 4-5 times overhead and bigger at NW spots that handle that size. Pretty much will be unruly everywhere with strong s to sw winds over the next 36-48 hrs. Look for lighter winds by Thursday into Friday before another storm comes ashore late in the week. Then, all bets are off as models are forecasting a very intense stormy period for the entire West Coast starting late next weekend and continuing well into the following week. In short, El Nino is really kicking into gear now and the long awaited global hemispheric pattern change with low pressure on the West Coast, high pressure in the East - is taking shape. We've been under a ridge of high pressure most of the Fall and early Winter, now the jetstream is going to take direct aim at us next week. Some models also hinting at the polar jet swinging in as well. You mix the warm, moist air of the southern jet and cold, cold air of the northern jet and you get one pretty epic stormy period. Lot's of rain, heavy snow in the Sierra - the whole sha-bang. We'll see if the models stay on course - it's still a week out. Interesting, the global wave models are also forecasting some most impressive wind fetches in the North Pacific next week - so we could see even larger surf. One other note - we've now lost the SE Papa Buoy - 600 miles off the Coast - which is a super important buoy for tracking incoming swells. So with that buoy offline, the Calif Buoy offline and the SF buoy offline - it's going to be very hard to pinpoint exact size of incoming swell trains. Best is to keep your eyes on the Bodega, Pt Reyes and SF Bar Buoys - for a somewhat accurate read of what is hitting close to our shores. That's all for now. Cya in the water.