I like passing on good news...and the best news we have this week is that there a lot of waves roaming around. Some of the waves are at the exotic, hard to reach locales, a few are at more traditional travel destinations, but more importantly, quite a few are much closer to home.

The main theme I have seen in our swell production for the week is the strong activity that has been rolling around the Southern Ocean. If you recall, from previous posts, the Southern Ocean is that nasty stretch of water that circles Antarctica...if you are looking at a map it would be the water that runs from around 40-south latitude and southward till you run into the ice-pack. Anyway the lower latitudes in the South Pacific, South Atlantic, and Southern Indian Oceans have seen some serious storm action over the last few days. I would be hard pressed to find a consistent spot in those areas that had winds below 30-knots.

I know, I know...”Adam, my brain is starting go numb, will you please get to the freaking surf?”

Fine...jerks...I will get to the waves. Are you sure you don’t want me to go over atmospheric dispersal formulas?

Let’s start in the Pacific...namely the South Pacific

There has been a lot of storm action throughout the SPAC over the last couple of weeks. We had a decent sized S swell crank into California, Baja, and Mexico last week that has been followed by a long stretch of S-SW swells that sort of flowed into its wake.



That trend is going to continue as we head into the next couple of weeks...that big storm tore the guts out of the blocking high-pressure that was making everyone miserable in May 2009...and with that ridge gone there has been a near constant area of fetch holding to the SE of New Zealand. Forecast charts are showing these winds holding in place for the next 5-7 days and sending out SW almost the whole time. It won’t be super huge, but it will be fairly consistent and keep most of the exposed spots in California and Baja Mexico in playful surf through the end of the month and probably through the first part of July.

Really the big winner is going to be the South Pacific islands...mostly those around Tahiti/French Polynesia. Those spots are quite a bit closer to the storm action and can expect 7-8 days of well-overhead surf with a few days of pummeling double-overhead sizes mixing in.

Hawaii’s South Shores also get in on the action...it won’t be as big as the islands to the south...but the exposed spots can expect some S-swell for the next several days that will keep those summer shores in the chest-head high range and likely set up some bigger head high+ waves as we head into the upcoming weekend. I know it is not like surfing Indo...but some warm water waves sounds nice about now.

Oh and one more thing...it looks like the Northeast Pacific’s first tropical storm is going to become a hurricane in a couple of days. It won’t be much of wave maker for anywhere besides the tip of Baja, but it is nice to see it up and running. It bodes well that there could be more tropical activity developing.

Over in the Indian Ocean the storms just keep cranking out the hits. Indo has been seeing a decent run of surf since the last week and it looks like a couple more storms are spinning up new swell for the end of this week and through the end of the month. Look at the swell-model charts...must be nice to be there right now.





Look for some solid overhead surf to continue through the end of the week for Indo, particularly at the SW facing spots. New SW-S swell combo moves in later in the weekend and it looks like more overhead waves on tap for next week.

About the only region that is getting semi-left out is the US East Coast. (Hey, it is summer).



The North Atlantic is pretty quiet right now. We are sort of in the gap between the last of the Spring storms and the start of hurricane season, which is notoriously when the East Coast is the smallest. There is still a few small areas of windswell that will push in over the next week...but nothing to right home about. I would look for mostly knee-waist high waves for most of the average spots for most of the week but with a few bigger chest-high+ sets hitting the S facing beaches as you move into the NY/NJ area and the always active OBX region.

OK gang, that is all I have for this week, keep an eye on the Southern Ocean, and the US tropical regions...I expect to see some good things in both of those areas over the next couple of weeks.

Have a good one!

--Adam Wright
Professional Surf / Snow Forecaster

For more detailed weather check out my SURF blog here
Check out my SNOW blog here