Santa Barbara Surf Forecast - For Wednesday - 1/20/10

Make sure to read the full region forecast...it will help this one make sense, (Not promising any miracles though). Click here for the full forecast www.socalsurf.com.

Almost a repeat of Tuesday but with a stronger storm and more swell. W-WNW swell continues to push through the exposed areas driving up the surf, and as it combines with the wind, generally making it pretty ugly out there. If you are absolutely going to surf no matter what…try to concentrate on areas that have some protection from the S-SE winds and can groom out the W-WNW swell mix.

Sizewise look for most of the average W facing breaks to hold in the overhead range with a few bigger well overhead sets mixing in. The standout WNW-NW facing spots down in the south half of the county will be more in the well-overhead range with some near double-overhead sets mixing in at times.

S-SE winds and rain will be on tap for the morning, winds holding around 15-25+ knots for the early part of the day. Look for more S-SSW’erly flow by the late afternoon and winds increasing into the 20-25+ knot range…so most spots will be pretty torn up by then. Even more rain and thunderstorms are expected to hold through Wednesday night.

01/20/2010 Wednesday
12:28AM LST 4.2 H
06:09AM LST 2.1 L
11:44AM LST 3.8 H
06:12PM LST 0.9 L