FLATTEST CA SUMMER EVER?
Summer Explained; Pray For Fall

The top row delineates the division in jet streams and lack of low pressure systems on the Southern stream, which is typically responsible for mainland swells. To the right is a corresponding GMS model which exposes our current predicament. On the bottom row we see a successful low pressure system on the Southern strip that usually brings some waves - too bad it's not happening now.

So what exactly is the deal? Why has this summer been so flat? Armchair forecasters point to Global Warming as a possible culprit, but Wave Watch forecaster Mark Sponsler says it ain’t so: “This summer has been very bad, following right on the heels of one of the worst winters in recent memory. The problem stems from what's occurring up at the jetstream level over the South Pacific. There are two branches of the jet in the southern hemisphere: The southern branch and (you guessed it) the northern branch. The southern branch is the one responsible for producing storm activity at the ocean surface. It typically flows west to east just over the north edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. In a good year it frequently will push north after it tracks under New Zealand, forming a thing call a trough, or a little eddy or wave in the jet that supports surface level storm development. Down at the ocean surface low pressure systems pushing under New Zealand fall 'up' into this trough which in turn imparts fuel allowing the low to strengthen. The net result is you get a nice storm at the oceans surface driving fetch aimed to the northeast towards both Hawaii and the US mainland.”

You get all that? There’s more: “But this year the jet has been flowing mostly zonally, or flat west to east,” Sponsler said. “This directs eastward migrating storms along that same heading, and doesn't provide any space or juice to help fuel their development. In short, no troughs, no storms. And if there's no storms, there’s no surf.”

There’s no surf. Travelers all along the Pacific Coast from Pavones to Puerto Escondido to Pacifica have been singing songs similar to the Malibu Blues, but Sponsler says that Global Flatness isn’t the problem: “The area from the Southwest Atlantic under South Africa on into the Indian Ocean has gotten a long string of high energy storms and large surf. Western Australia was gotten bombed, and the Mentawais have gotten their fair share of surf too. By the time those system start pushing under Australia they are spent. So the issue is more a case of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

To sum up. Wrong place = California. Wrong time = summer of 2007. There is a silver lining in all of this, at least for some of us. John Philbin is a surf instructor whose secret motto is “Pray for flat!” According to Philbin: “An almost lifeless ocean is great for what I do, because there is just enough surf for beginners to stand up, but not enough to sweep them down the point from Third to First. This has been the best season for teaching surfing I have ever seen, but I don’t know if that is going to make anyone else happy.”

It isn’t making anyone else happy. Summer is almost over, CostCo is having back to school sales and many of California’s youth are not going to be there in their places with bright shining faces, because they got rooked by what is possibly one of the flattest California summers ever.

Pray for Fall.

Beautifully barren in Nor Cal...wave barren.