Just had an historic week of stormy weather in Santa Cruz. How was the surfing? In short, not so good, but here's the day by day blow by blow. Let's hope the future brings better waves!

Friday January 15, 2010: The rain should be light on Saturday evening, and perhaps a break for Sunday morning. But then it all comes crashing down, with storm after storm set to pelt us through most of next week. What's this mean for surfing?

If you can steal some time from work, get your waves right now! Or try a dusk session later today. Even Saturday morning should be a good window for surfing, and maybe Sunday morning too. Other than that, get ready to stay out of the ocean for many days.

It's a bit much to expect, and comes with some downside, but perhaps the rain and stormy weather might be severe enough to start one of the most rare waves in Santa Cruz firing. Yes, this is the San Lorenzo River mouth, which used to be a great wave in the days before the construction of the Santa Cruz yacht harbor.

These days the river mouth goes off only once every couple years. It requires a huge downpour over many days, conditions that cause local flooding and mudslides. So it's not exactly something to anticipate, given that it will cause much suffering. But it can make the most sculpted wave in all of Santa Cruz suddenly appear, with brown rooms peeling left and right.

A week of wet and windy weather is in front of us here in Northern California. This is day one, Monday morning January 18. It's also Martin Luther King Jr. day, a holiday for some. However, there won't be much in the way of surf for this day, as the bad weather has descended.

And today was supposed to be a bit of a lull before the real event Wednesday! Surf this morning? Fergettaboudit!

This is advertised as the most extreme storm of the entire week, so you know the chances for surfing are nonexistent! Check the radar image, as usual it is from the folks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Surfing is not a possibility, but the rain has abated somewhat since this morning. The radar picture illustrates the situation quite well. Only a few sporadic showers in the mountains remain, but another band of precipitation lies off shore. The Santa Cruz area has seen at least 4 inches of rainfall so far with this current storm.

Whew! Glad that one is past! The incredible wind and rain from this morning are now gone, but there is more to come. This is the surf condition roundup for Wednesday evening, day three of this notable week of storms.

Surf conditions just have to be better this morning than yesterday morning. Much less wind is afoot, for one thing, and the rain fall isn't nearly so intense.

Surf conditions are still very much problematic this afternoon, even as things continue to slowly improve. The diminished wind is the biggest single change.

How's the surf? I dunno, let's see! Conditions continue to improve. A few hardy souls ventured into the water at Steamer Lane this afternoon.

Image above shows the precipitation situation as of 7AM on Friday, January 22, 2010. Although there is a wide area of rain, at least the colors are all blue and green. Earlier this week, yellow, orange and red were dominating the radar image, evidence of heavy downpour. All radar images used in this series of articles are from NOAA.

Finally, in the afternoon of day five of the stormy weather, we have conditions ripe for wave riding.

Radar shows only light and widely scattered showers, very few in Santa Cruz county. So for now, the rain is past.

Wind is not much of a factor either; the Monterey buoy shows easterly breezes gusting only to 12 knots. Santa Cruz is listing calm conditions.

Swell is still hanging in there, at 12 feet, 13 seconds from the west. Wind waves are only 2 feet and 3 seconds. This is a great combination for all the surf breaks in the county.

What are the surf conditions for Friday evening, day five in this week of extraordinary storms? In a nutshell, things are looking up!

Scattered showers are still with us, as you can see in the image above. It's likely the entire weekend will see rain on and off.

CU Out There,

DogMan