West Coast Gets Their Own Valentine Swell (Albeit a Lil Late)
Conditions improve during the week with swell arriving from many sources and directions
Kevin Wallis
Link copied to clipboard
If you’re on the West Coast and feeling a little unloved after Hawaii stole all the attention over Pipeline Valentine Weekend, don’t get too down. You’ll rebound quickly with a week of increasingly fun surf from multiple sources. Many areas will start the week with bouts of onshore wind and unfavorable conditions as a smaller version of those recent Hawaii swells reaches California. But as the surf gradually tapers down from mid to late week, the wind and wave quality will improve from a fun combo of NW and Southern Hemisphere swell at the well-exposed breaks. It won’t be heart-throbbing Pipe, but it should be all the affection you need.
The weather clears and the hangover ends this weekend.
Favorable trade winds greet the the largest northwest swell to hit the Islands in nearly a month. All the big-name breaks from Pipe to Waimea, and some of the (semi) off-the-beaten-path spots should have a moment to shine. And in case you haven’t checked the calendar, it’s Valentine’s Day (and President’s Day) weekend. If you love XL-surf, but your significant other doesn’t, be sure to ask permission (or beg forgiveness) before scheduling your weekend water time.
Keep your eyes out at the end of the week as our coverage ramps up with the incoming swell. Look for a fresh Swell Event (that’s the big purple bar at the top of the homepage and the top of your favorites on the app) and takeovers on all of our social channels on Friday morning. As we showed during the long-running, back-to-back-to-back-to-back North Pacific swells of North Pacific Overdrive, we’ll get you as close as we can without getting you wet. Look
Expert forecasts
Our team of meteorologists are North Pacific forecast experts. Try Premium for free and we’ll help you know before you go.
This latest round comes from yet another hurricane-force low in the North Pacific. It developed off of Northern Japan early this week, flanked by fairly robust high pressure off of Southern Japan. Satellites verified peak wind near 70 knots and seas of almost 50’. The strength of this storm is in line with the one we saw just over a week ago that sent the Super Saturday swell, but there are a few reasons the incoming surf will be a bit smaller. This storm was further away when it was strongest and it moved sideways (west to east), instead of (southeast) towards the Hawaiian Islands.
Jaws, Outer Reefs, and Waimea on Saturday and then more macking days at Maverick’s
Jamie Mitchell, Jaws, Photo: Fred Pompermayer
Charlie Hutcherson
Link copied to clipboard
The North Pacific is ready to pull us all back in. (Not that we ever really left.) Over the past couple weeks, we documented North Pacific Overdrive back-to-back-to-back-to-back North Pacific swells with realtime coverage from Pipeline, Mav’s, and countless other breaks. When it felt like things were coming back to reality, our coverage went into semi-retirement but the Pacific basin isn’t done flexing yet. (And yes we’ll be documenting this one in realtime, too. Stay tuned.)