This is one powerful swell!
It’s going to be building too, all day Friday and even throughout Friday night until just before daybreak Saturday. But that’s not why I’m saying it’s powerful.
The period of the swell is pushing between 11 and 14 seconds between the beach and the 120. Then you might say, oh crap, an 11 or 12 second period swell for us is all closeouts. Well you’d be wrong! Just kidding with the intensity. But you would be wrong 🙂 The quality of the low pressure system is what makes or breaks the swell, and it does help if you surf one of our reef breaks that can hold it better when it gets hollow.
This swell has a fairly uniform set of period bands in it. Not anything as good as the Nov. 14th, 2010 swell (see the 2 links below) with perfect waves, but……….when I looked at the rock breaks in Satellite Beach today, even with the onshore winds in the 10 to 15 mph range, there was some sweet shoulders holding up, so imagine a South wind break with a quality swell. After looking at the Satellite Rock break, then I looked at 2nd light and O’club, and then a block south of 16th street, and the beach breaks were not holding up well, were at least a foot or two smaller.
Alright, I’m long-winded 😉 Friday morning rock breaks south of 2nd light should be solid head high waves, with 5 to 7 mph South winds, but I believe we could see a little SSW or with a gift from above possibly SW until 8 Am or so. These waves have lots of power, and are very hollow.
Saturday morning, I see the swell being a foot bigger at the daybreak, very possibly a foot overhead on the huge sets, with SW winds at daybreak, hollow, plenty of makeable waves and some sweet barrells. If you have a camera, bring it. The drift will probably be gone by Saturday too. The tides are perfect. Friday high tide is around 4:15 Am, and as you know high going low is best for us. So get out by 6:30 or 7 at the latest Friday to catch the slight offshore wind window.
Saturday, High is at 5:20 so anytime after 7:30 should rock! Unless the storm suddenly moves, Saturday should be epic. For 3 or 4 days straight, the models have been showing SW winds for Saturday, so I would bet $ 20 that it will be SW till at least 10, and probably pushing till past 12. Strange thing is, I don’t think it will hit 8 feet at the 120 buoy, I believe more like 7 feet Friday night, and yet we could have 7 foot face waves Saturday morning before the swell starts dropping a little in the afternoon Saturday.
Take a look at the swell period chart (the first image) for 7 Am Friday morning, and notice the fairly uniform period bands, instead of little dots of color all over the place, it is one solid blue with the mega period coming in late Friday nite for Saturday morning. The next pic is Saturday morning which is getting to 75 % of perfect storm. (Nov. 14th was thee perfect storm) The last picture was from today with plenty of power but the wrong winds, and the swell was still coming in even though the period was high.
Today, it was thigh high at the end of Johnson with onshore winds but some fun drops, some shoulders and a little power. I saw Scooter get an awesome and long left, and his wife got are really long, to the beach right.
Saturday morning is almost a perfect storm but not quite. Not like Nov. 14th, 2010. Go back and take a look at the pictures from Satellite Beach on that day, and look at the swell period chart I placed there I think the day before. It was a bigger swell, but they are similar in their perfection.
Okay, have a great Friday sesh, and have really mega-sesh on Saturday, God willing he keeps the conditions on target.
Later,
oldwaverider
Johnson Avenue Surfers 