Jesse Ferrell in his blog today wrote about how a strong storm in the Gulf of Alaska is causing huge swells in the Gulf of Alaska and along the British Columbia coast. Check it out.
This same storm, though, has a much larger effect than in just British Columbia. High energy, large swells are impacting the Northwest coast now, and large, long period swells will increase in California from north to south tonight through tomorrow night.
The peak of the swells will be tonight in Washington and Oregon, then slowly subside tomorrow and Sunday. From the Wave Watch III model, here are the forecast swells for 06Z Saturday.
Local swells will reach 30 to 35 feet along some coastal areas tonight. Even though these swells will come down through the weekend, swells Sunday will still be pretty big. Here is what the model has for wave heights at 18Z Sunday.
In California, the peak of the swells will be tomorrow in northern and central California and tomorrow night in Southern California. Swells will peak at an average of 15 to 25 feet, but some favored areas will likely see 25- to 30-foot swells. Here is what the Wave Watch III model has for swell heights at 18Z Saturday off of California.
Though a lot of this wave energy will stay in the outer waters of Southern California, some of the energy is still likely to move in to the beaches, causing dangerous rip currents on beaches and increasing surf, especially on west-facing beaches.
Obviously, boaters from the Northwest to Southern California have to exercise extreme caution in venturing out. In fact, it would be wise not to in these hazardous seas.
Each year there are deaths from people getting too close to the surf line to watch these large breakers, then get hit by one of the waves and are swept out to sea, or battered on the rocks. Here again, use extreme caution, and do not venture out onto jetties and areas exposed to the waves. The Southern California beaches will be experiencing dangerous rip currents this weekend even with the large waves staying offshore. Rip currents can be quite deadly as well.
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Fabulous day on the San Mateo County Coast south of Half Moon Bay. We enjoyed watching the 21 footers break..there was some beach erosion.
Posted by Bob | November 8, 2009 3:40 PM
The weather was gorgeous today so we drove out to the Sonoma county coast. Looks like we missed the big waves and swells. We've driven out to the coast before and after storms and parked on the bluffs and watched the big swells come in. It's very impressive and a bit scary to look out from a bluff that's maybe 30 feet above the ocean and look straight out, rather than down, at waves coming in.
Posted by Evelyn | November 7, 2009 10:22 PM
There is good news for southern California by mid month. Brett Anderson has been predicting a very wet California/Southwest US for November 16-22 for the last 2-3 weeks now while BC and the Pacific NW get warm and dry. I'm really looking forward to this rainy weather coming. I haven't seen any measurable rain here since February. This will be such a great relief to so many people down here. I look forward to reading about the upcoming storms really soon.
Posted by Matt | November 7, 2009 5:58 PM