Winter swells past and future

WEATHER TIDBITS

Hawaii and California are having one of the most incredible winter

swell seasons ever seen. It’s only mid-January and Hawaii has already

gone off the Richter more than 1958, ‘69, ’83 or ’98.

More than half the time, it’s been glassy on all sides of the

island chain, a near absence of strong northeast to east-northeast

trades has paved the way for glassy conditions for days on end!

As early as Oct. 17, 2002, a massive northwest swell rocked the

north and west shores, serving up 20- to 25-foot bombs to Hanalei Bay

on Kawai, then 25-foot-plus at Oahu’s Waimea Bay, then on to Jaws on

Maui, where Laird, Darrick, Dave Kalama and the crew were there to

greet the 30-foot beauties kissed clean by light offshores.

There were even a few rogue 35- to 40-foot sets. Little did they

know this was just a warm up session

Four days later, on the 21st -- bang! Another 20- to 30-foot

macker arrived, and about that time, opening day at the Queen of the

Coast saw the new 2002-03 season start with a solid 8-foot swell

coupled with light offshore winds.

A total of only five days since opening day have seen surf under

waist high at the Rincon.

Last week, it really climaxed, with 30- to 40-mph northeast Santa

Ana offshores and 12-foot-plus freight trains.

I just learned that Cortes Bank (a rise in the ocean up to only 12

feet below the surface at low tide) got absolutely hammered by 50- to

75-foot waves already on three occasions, with many days of 30- to

45-foot waves. Cortes Bank sits almost 100 miles off the U.S.-Mexico

border, near San Diego.

It’s exposed to every swell, while we in Laguna get fewer because

we’re way more shadowed by Point Conception than Cortes, or even San

Clemente. We’re also shielded by the Santa Catalina Islands and

everything on up to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara.

These same Channel Islands keep Santa Barbara from getting summer

south swells from Baja and the South Pacific.

Virtually everywhere (pick a spot, any spot) in California has had

one or more career days (beyond epic) so far this winter swell

season, and the season’s not even half over yet!

Hawaii is having its heaviest wave season probably since the

incredible winter of ‘69, when Kaena Point maxed out at 60 to 75 feet

or somewhere in there. When it gets that big, it’s really hard to

gauge it right on.

I mean, Waimea has already closed out the bay at 30 to 35 feet

plus four times in the last 17 days!

The 2002-03 season is definitely challenging the winter of ‘68-’69

for the heavyweight crown. And if this frantic wave machine continues

its pace, then we’ll have beaten ‘68-’69 by double!

The latest El Nino episode is continuing its slow but steady

development. My hunch is, it’ll stay warm and really dry through

January, and then February through April are gonna dump on us. Not to

the tune of the Biblical 37.27 inches from five years ago, but

probably at least 20 to 22 inches.

Then there’ll be a very warm tropical summer and 72- to 75-degree

water with minimal gloom.

Our recent Santa Ana onslaught really did some freaky things to

the thermometer. At 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 5, it was clear skies, temp:

48 degrees, humidity: 81%, dewpoint: 42, wind: calm.

At 9 p.m., there were clear skies, temp: 77 degrees, humidity:

17%, wind: northeast 25 to 35 plus. The next day, Newport got a hi-lo

reading of 84 to 75 degrees!

It hadn’t gotten anywhere close to that reading since September

1997.

When offshores of that magnitude hit our coast, rarely is there

any significant groundswell running. But last week broke the mold and

slammed the door on that theory!

I saw an honest 10-foot wave thunder in to Main Beach mid-day

Tuesday, with (I’m not lying) 50-foot-high spray.

It looked as heavy as Puerto Escondido and probably was!

The sun is setting at 5:05 p.m. as I write this on Monday the

13th.

So we’ve gained 25 minutes on our sunset since Dec. 10. That’s the

date we get our earliest sunset of the year, at 4:40 p.m. at our

latitude. Right now, we’re at our latest sunrise at 6:57 a.m.

So it’s 68 degrees here at 1:30 p.m. The rest of the country is

eating it, bad!

And we’ve already had more dramatic weather and surf in the first

two weeks of ’03 than we had all last year!

Lots more to come ... stay tuned!

* DENNIS McTIGHE is a Laguna Beach resident. He earned a

bachelor’s in earth sciences from UCSD and was a U.S. Air Force

weatherman at Hickman AFB, Hawaii.