La Niña

[BoMan]

In a normal year at my Northern California break, the waves were often 2-3 feet at 15 seconds in a northwest swell. Last year La Niña brought many 3-5 foot days at 18 seconds with swells coming from the SW. Since my local faces South, this made for some fun days in the water! The long range forecast predicts another La Niña year but not as strong.

How did La Niña affect your break and what do you expect next year?

[Naeco78]

La Nina is usually really good news for east coast surf, with a more active hurricane season. I think we almost went thru the whole list of storm names this year. I think it's usually carryover from the previous La Nina out west. The storm tracks were especially good this year (most stayed between Bermuda and NC), but I'm not sure if that part is related to La Nina. It seems like we've had similar hurricane seasons going back to the 90's when I first started hearing about La Nina/El Nino weather cycles. Usually the east coast has really good surf during La Nina and the opposite happens with El Nino.

Does the NW usually have cleaner conditions with La Nina also? Looks like the Jet Stream might take the storm track much further north thru Alaska during those years

[IB_Surfer]

So far it’s been a small winter in San Diego, and now it’s raining…

[jaffa1949]

Map fails to consider the effects on Australia in fact the floods have drowned Australia so it doesn’t even appear.
Lots of surf of good size east coast lows and big swell west coast epic rains.

it is poor meteorology to consider only localised systems la niña/ el Niño effect both hemispheres , link in the Indian ocean responses and you can see how truly global these systems are!
Food for thought and a chance for surfers to understand they are the canary in the coal mine!
King tides too Bo man so will interesting what happens up your way!

[Geezer]

King tides and lots of rain. Swell is garbage as always this time of year though.