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Chubasco Heaven!

Dennis McTighe

It’s a beautiful Tuesday afternoon here in Lagunaville. Conditions at 2 p.m.: sunny skies, light SSE breeze with clean blue skies; the air seems cleaner when a SE breeze blows. It’s when a west wind blows it’s hazier, almost an industrial air look to it like it blew down here from the funkier air quality from Long Beach and Los Angeles.

Today the clearing process was much more complete because the ceiling was much higher at 3000 feet as last night’s marine layer spread much further all the way to the Inland Empire. The subsequent stratus layer was not as concentrated as the previous three days, so clearing was more uniform, as clearing took place in Pomona about the same time as the coastal areas. The fresh SE breeze also pushed in some warmer water reaching 68 degrees today, way up from Sunday’s 61. The south wind is our friend as it prevents any upwelling that is brought up to the surface from the westerlies.

The beaches are getting a good rinsing this week from high astronomical tides in conjunction with this month’s full moon. Plus a pretty healthy Southern Hemi is pushing the water even higher up the beach with solid 3-6 foot shorebreak sets riding on high tides of 6.4 to 7.0 ft. for the next few nights.

The air temperature is a comfortable 74 degrees with the humidity at 50% so the dewpoint is a very soothing 54 degrees, about 10 degrees lower than this time last week because we’re under a drier southwest flow replacing the more muggy southeast flow of last week. The monsoonal thunderstorms have shifted farther to the east now confined to the eastern half of Arizona.

Before I forget, if you’re at Albertsons’s market in SoLag, check out one of Fly’s ( Pierre von Swae) newly shaped surfboards with a clock in it, of all things! Fly shaped my very first brand new surfboard back in 1962. It was a 9’4” Wardy. Fly, Terry Martin, and the late Dale Velzy have shaped more boards than just about anybody.

Let’s jump in the time machine back to August, 1972. Introducing Estelle, Fernanda, Gwen, Hyacinth, Inez, JoAnne, and Kathleen. McWeather had a date with all seven of ‘em. Except they were all hurricanes! August of 1972 was the busiest hurricane producing month in Eastern Pacific history with significant wave action from each and every one of them! A total of 28 out of the 31 days that month had overhead surf! And the water temp. was 72-74 degrees the whole time with 20 of the days having day long glassy conditions! Hyacinth and JoAnne came up really big with 15 foot sets at Newport Point

Legalize El Nino! Aloha!

Dennis McTighe served as a meteorologist at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii from 1969 to 1972, and was an NOAA forecaster  and earned a degree in Earth Sciences from UC San Diego and has been keeping daily weather records since 1958.

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