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Image © Aaron Chang/swell.com How many swimmin' pools in that lip? Enough to crush our wetsuit-clad hero real quick if he fails to negotiate this critical bottom turn. Incredible as it may seem, this surfer - big wave rider Mike Parsons - is riding a board that measures just 7'2" and works more like a slalom waterski than a long 'gun' surfboard. The aim here is for maximum control, and enough weight in the board to handle chop ... and some seriously sympathetic support crew back on the boat with a spare pair of Y-fronts and a cold beer.
Killer Cortes tamed A big north-west Pacific swell, and a ridge of high pressure combine to create magic 100 miles west of San Diego January 19, 2001 This is a story of a perfect combination. Enter stage left: A storm, 'number 15', developing east of Japan and west of the dateline before quickly spinning away to the north-east, into the Gulf of Alaska. For 48 hours it churns and burns, hardly moving from its new position. Eventually it tracks away to the north, but not before it helped to make history. In those 48 hours, winds in the southwest quadrant blew in excess of 50 knots, creating a swell of mammoth proportions. Acccording to the boys at StormSurf, the swell hit the coast on January 18 and held thru January 20 with maximum buoy readings at Half Moon Bay - the home of Mavricks - about 14 ft at 20-25 seconds during daylight hours. Enter stage right: A ridge of high pressure west of California, creating a calm canvas on which to spill storm 15's sweet, sweet swell. Of course, the main player is Cortes Reef, 100 miles west of San Diego on a bearing of 210 degrees. Part of an underwater mountain chain, the reef rises to within a metre of the surface and for years has been a secret source of wealth for abalone divers. Combine all the above ingredients, and what do you have? An awesome tow-in spectacle. Image © Larry Moore/swell.com A very big wave ... in the middle of nowhere. It takes some special conditions to create this wave, 100 miles west of San Diego. Check out the glassy sea surface! Take a closer look and you can see a 54 foot fishing boat to the left - it transported this crew out of San Diego to Cortes. To its right you can see Brad Gerlach aboard his powerful jet ski gettin' the heck outa there! and a little further to the right ... Mike Parsons is surfing that wave! What makes this place special, is that it can handle these big conditions and still maintain form. We will certainly be hearing a lot more about this reef in coming winters! An awesome story The story of this wave is best left to those who pioneered it - the two tow-in teams Mike Parsons and Brad Gerlach, Peter Mell and Ken Collins, and Larry Moore, aka 'Flame', the Swell surfing magazine photo editor who for 11 years has religiously checked out this break from the seat of a plane. Their story is told in lavish detail at Swell.com., while the boys at StormSurf tracked the wind fountain that created this big, beautiful monster and have archived weather data surrounding it. According to StormSurf, this same swell, combined with the zone of high pressure off California, created the best waves at northern California's Mavricks for the last three years. Ohau also benefited, with 20 foot plus surf at Waimea Bay, but if you look at the storm data below you will see this gift of the wave gods was designed for California. No doubt, Baha got a good thrashing as well.
A look at the weather North Pacific infra-red Images courtesy: Purdue/UNISYS In the beginning, 'storm 15' was a loose cluster of low pressure east of Japan. Soon after this image, it consolidated and moved north east. Typically, North West Pacific storms develop further north - east of Hokkaido, or even the Kuril Islands - and track north-east. The waves they create benefit Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, but not always the US west coast. This storm developed further south and tracked east for a long time before deepening and moving north-east into the Gulf of Alaska. Here it did something critical: It stalled in position, yet maintained its strength. It directed north west winds, and subsequent wave flow onto the Californian coast with a power not seen for years.
East Pacific infra-red Courtesy: Purdue/UNISYS 48 hours later and 'storm 15' has moved into the Gulf of Alaska, directing it strongest winds towards the US west coast. Ignore the island-like shapes to the north-west of Hawaii.
North Pacific winds, based on
QuickScat technology Courtesy: NOAA NESDIS Here's a real time view of 'storm 15' from when it develops west of the dateline and east of Japan to where it sits and stews in the Gulf of Alaska. Below is a detailed quickscat image showing the strongest winds - above 50 knots - in the storm's southern-west quadrant.
North Pacific surface pressure Courtesy: University of
Hawaii This animated surface pressure map clearly shows the storm soon after it developed, just west of the dateline, its rapid migration to the north-east before it stalls in position, grinding away for 48 hours before tracking north and fading. During its 48 hours in the Gulf of Alaska, 50 knot winds in it south-west quadrant direct a powerful swell onto the US west coast. Note the zone of high pressure off the coast of California. On the 19th, the day Cortes was ridden, winds were light again, with mild Santa Ana conditions offshore.
North Pacific wave heights and
wind Images Courtesy: NOAA OMB Watch how this storm creates waves from nothing to more than 15 metres (56 feet) at its peak.
Mike Perry of Surfalert
tells us how Look for the jet stream over northern Japan to steer developing storms in a north-east direction, allowing plenty of time in open ocean for the storm to develop. If an east Asian storm develops off northern Japan and tracks east before bearing north, expect waves from a westerly direction. Storms developing off the Kuril Islands and strengthening south of the Aleutian islands produce swell with a more northerly direction. Look for symmetrically circular low pressure cells that radiate energy evenly. Oddly shaped storms tend to decay more quickly and can develop into complex storms with many centres. Look for storms traveling less than 22knts. Faster storms suck wave trains onto their hind flanks and distort the nice, evenly spaced swell surfers desire. Big waves travel at around 20-22 knots, or 40-44 kph. Waves with 17 to 25 seconds between peaks are ‘high energy’ waves, and produce some seriously radical conditions. High energy waves travel very low to the surface, and are not as affected by wind decay. Low energy waves travel high on the surface and are quickly eroded by opposing winds. Beware WAMs Wave Analysis Machines: Those groovy looking, graphically pleasing, computer-aided swell predictors are a great tool if used as just that: A tool. Mike Perry of SurfAlert notes that WAMs rarely fulfill their prediction beyond 48 hours. Read more about them here! Great sites: Swell.com:
Great reading about a great subject, dear to all our hearts. www.stormsurf.com: These guys have a lot of info on everything from wave prediction to weather tutorials. Their home wave is the legend winter break of Mavericks, south of San Francisco. Here's what they had to say about storm 15:
"That swell also hammered Mavericks with the
best surf in 3 years. The storm was labeled. Here's links for
the daily text based forecasts for that swell:
The swell hit Mavericks on 1/18 and held thru 1/20
with max buoy readings at Half Moon Bay
(46012) about 14 ft @ 20-25 secs during daylight hours.
Here's links for satellite imagery and
forecast maps (big download though):
Mike
Perry's Surf Alert: Great links, solid
advice, and awesome pictures. Oahu surf forecast thanks to Pat Caldwell. Association of Surfing Professionals home page. Get all the gossip on these hugely famous wave-riders.
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