 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Surfing California's Central Coast Watersby Charles LoeMost people have a favorite time of year or season. Some prefer the warm dry summers; others the cool green of spring. For many, it's all about the season when conditions are right for their particular sport. Skiers and snowboarders obviously love the wintertime with its blizzards and powder conditions. Waterskiers and wakeboarders want the hot calm days of summer on the lake. Surfers - we wait for the season that brings the largest and most consistent surf conditions. Here on the central coast we are now coming into that time of the year - fall, my personal favorite. In October and November water is blue and green beneath the sunny skies and about as warm as it gets all year. The days are often warm and clear with high pressure weather systems creating offshore winds blowing through coastal canyons and grooming the waves. It’s hot on the beach and the sun feels great on your back while changing out of your wetsuit. It's easy to linger and laugh with your friends for awhile, just enjoying the day. This is when we normally get the first rainstorms of the winter season. Waves generated from storms from far across the Pacific coincide with our weather and wind conditions, creating ideal surfing. Also, frequent storms at sea in the northern Pacific and, occasionally, a wandering hurricane off Mexico, will send strong waves to our coastline. Depending upon the size of the storms, enough rain can fall during a wet year that local creeks and river mouths flow to the sea. This flow deposits sand in the ocean, which drifts in the currents, replenishing our beaches and building up the sandbars that shape our waves. As the sand drifts along the coastline, it settles in different patterns, building up sandbars, creating channels, and sculpting the seafloor. These bumps give shape to the waves. The waves roll in to shore, are literally tripped by the high spot in the sand, and then break gradually into deeper water along the edge of the sandbar. This creates a wave that breaks evenly, with a surfable wall of water to ride. Without these undulations, the waves would roll in and break all at once, with nowhere to ride but straight to the beach. The sand bars are always shifting, being torn down by wave action and drifting along the coast to settle somewhere else. Huge swells can scour whole beaches and destroy the sandbars. When this happens the cycle starts all over again. It is in this ever-changing wavescape that so many of us love to play. We recently experienced a week that exhibited both ends of our weather spectrum. At the beginning of the week a large storm moved through the area with 50 mph winds and huge amounts of rain. Trees were down and there was flooding in some areas - a gully washer, as they say. The front passed through, the sun came out, and by the end of the week it was "Beach Blanket Bingo." Eighty degrees at the coast, offshore winds, and head high surf - everything we love about fall on the central coast. I hope you enjoy this season as much as we do. Until next time. Mahalo.
Sierra Club General Meeting: Protecting Our Coastal Resources
|
|---|
