Warm water is a nice phenomenon

WEATHER TIDBITS

The first real symptoms of summer have been felt the past several

days.

70- to 72-degree water, minimal marine layer, seasonal

thunderstorms popping up in our local mountains and deserts and now,

tropical storm Cristina is sending us some of her energy in the form

of a clean 175 south tropical swell at 10 to 11 seconds.

So we’re two for three so far this season. Not bad at all.

Remember, we got waves from “Alma” way back in May and “Boris” in

June never made it as far as our surf window.

And the water temp is warmer than it’s been since ’97.

It never made it to 70 degrees in ‘99, not even once! And to think

that just two years prior; it was over 70 for 195 days straight! May

5 through Nov. 19!

San Clemente had the warmest reading for ocean temps Monday at

73.5 degrees with 70 here in town.

The stinkin’ westerlies have backed off considerably recently with

south winds at 5 to 12 mph that dominate most mornings, but slack off

by early afternoon and actually glassing off for any evening surf

sessions.

Our nights have been a bit balmier this summer too, with average

lows at 63.9 degrees compared to 59.8 a year ago.

Some pretty hefty thunderstorms have been unloading lots of

lightning, setting a few fires off near Lake Arrowhead.

Here’s something kind of bizarre, three different people just this

week have told me that the water temp off Cabo San Lucas is a

ridiculous 61 degrees. That’s 18 below normal on the Pacific side!

Sixty friggin one!

Now this one’s got me baffled. Geez, with that great a

differential between water and land temps which average 96 to 104 for

mid-July, there must be thick beach fog when the land temps break 80

by 8 a.m.

That 61 down there means we up here have got ‘em beat by up to 10.

It should be the other way around. Perhaps its due to the newly

tagged Pacific North-South oscillation cycle that creates winter like

the winter of 1948-49 when it snowed in Laguna and just about

everywhere else in January of 1949 and temps sunk to an unofficial 19

degrees in January of the same year out in the canyon. The water temp

was 49.5 the week of January 5-12.

So Cabo’s water temp requires at least a full suit if you want to

stay out for a while. Boy, that’s a first.

Usually, that chilly summer current (the Japanese or Humboldt)

lurks more off Central Baja. It’s hard to say, at least at this

point, what’s going on!

Stay tuned!

* DENNIS McTIGHE is a Laguna Beach resident.