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California swell, yesterday and today :

Tom_in_CA

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Dec 23, 2013
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Hey gang : The big swell that you heard about in the news, unfortunately did not arrive yesterday morning, till 3 to 4 hrs. AFTER the high tide had come & gone :( So all the waves and news, etc.... that you might have seen , were bashing around during the lower tide time-of-day yesterday.

The high tide had been at ~6:30am. But the swell did not exceed 14-ish ft till the 11am reporting hour!  

The 10am report (using the Monterey bay buoy history) had been: 14.8 ft. But then the 11am reading jumped to 21.7 ft. swell ! Thus as you can see: At least 3.5 hrs. after the high tide had come and gone :( So the swells and the high tides did not coincide right. Those combinations are necessary for beach erosion.

If the massive waves/swells arrive at lower tide times of days, (or arrive at times of the month when the high tide is a wimpy 4.7 or 4.9, blah blah) then the furious bashing is only going on in the inter-tidal wet-pack zone. Which is already acclimated to daily waves, and is flat, and hard-packed, allowing for harmless roll-in. But further back up, where the dunes start, and the beach slopes upward , is where we want those waves to be slamming. Because then: Instead of hitting and rolling in (like they would in the inter-tidal zone), they have "no where to go except down". That's when erosion is most likely to occur. Is when high tides combine with high swells. And preferably on-shore or side-shore winds to further-drive those waves.


As for yesterday's results : Speaking for all Monterey bay beaches (Santa Cruz to Carmel), here's what a few of us deduced : There was nothing worth the effort/time. I'm sure flukes existed somewhere, but ... nothing from what a few of us found/saw.

Here's what I predict will happen (but it's highly depending on the buoy reports for this morning's high tide) : Sometimes, in events like this: Mother takes another 24 to 48 hrs, after the actual event, to "readjust her slopes". So for example : There could be off-shore erosion (out where you can't see). Then the next day, mother nature "robs sand" off the inter-tidal zone , to fill in those off-shore voids. I have normally only see this happen when the next day is still rather rough. Not if the seas turned glassy-calm blue.

So ironically, the erosion often occurs @ the day-or-two AFTER the big events. Hence : Today , Friday, is worth a try. But am going to be looking at the buoy reports all the way through the 6, 7, 8, and 9am hrs. today. That is the bell-shaped curve of the high tide time this morning. Crossing my fingers that it stays @ 15 ft. or better all during this time.

And hoping the direction continues to be SW to W. If it turns too much NW, then it's aiming at beaches that tend to be more acclimated to such conditions. But if it stays like it has been (SW to W), then it can reach the normally calmer SW facing beaches.

How are you So. CA guys doing ? The beach cam's look good down your way !
 
Hey Tom,

The So. Cal. beaches were good to me today. Actually just heading home from one of my favorite beaches as I write this. Will be posting some goodies tonight. :D:D
 
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Monterey bay beaches (both north and south bay beaches) were lousy today. Very inexplicable :?:

So. CA lags an hour or behind in the swell train timing. So maybe you guys had better coinciding of tides vs swells. But for us: Very disappointing today. :mad:
 
We are going to get a day here of larger waves out of the NW tomorrow with winds in the 20mph range. I suspect there will be a lot of toss up targets.... but the whole week appears to be choppy or higher swells than normal. Got to move some sand around .... but will it affect our hard pan on low flatter beaches or more the high bankers were sands been building and very loose? Pick your poison...... in the water or in the wet sand.
 
Yesterday, Friday, the conditions in SoCal seemed almost perfect. Around high tide Surly Sandcrab and I watched in amazement as some incoming swells came in like rockets, hitting the existing cuts and shooting straight up, creating 10 foot walls of water directly in front of us.
I was sure that I was going to do well but unlike Surly, jjm and Slimpickens (it seems), I just couldn't get my coil over any gold. I found a lot of coins and maybe some silver and bumped into a couple other forum members so it was still a fun hunt but I feel like I missed a great opportunity to find some yellow metal. :yes:
 
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A friend tried corona del mar and got zilch. Bottlecaps even.
I’ll likely have to wait til tomorrow.
Tide times in our paper differed drastically from what my phone app suggests.
 
A friend tried corona del mar and got zilch. Bottlecaps even.
I’ll likely have to wait til tomorrow.
Tide times in our paper differed drastically from what my phone app suggests.
Friday's high tide was around 0630, I believe. I'm still learning, but being that CDM is a south facing beach I wouldn't have thought that this incoming swell would have done much there. I think that the west facing beaches were the best bets?
 
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