La Jolla visibility today: 5 to 9 feet, then the wind shows up

Short version: the Dive Pro beta model has La Jolla at a D today, Sunday, November 1. That means 5 to 9 feet of visibility. Confidence is low.

Why it's a D

The swell isn't big. It's messy. The main swell is about 3.8 feet out of the WNW at 6.6 seconds, and there's a 3.7 foot wind wave stacked on top at about 4 seconds. Period is the gap between waves. Short gap means the water sloshes like a bathtub instead of rolling in clean lines, and that sloshing kicks sand off the bottom in the shallows.

Then the wind. It's light at dawn, under 10 mph through 8am. By 9 it's 15. By noon it's about 20 out of the west, with gusts near 27. That's onshore, and it's the kind of afternoon that turns the surface into cottage cheese.

The rain part

The forecast has about two thirds of an inch of rain today. Rain washes street runoff into the ocean, and that's how the County ends up posting water advisories. As of Saturday's County list, the Cove still had an advisory dating back to September 29, and Children's Pool still had its standing one. La Jolla Shores and Marine Street were cleared Saturday. After today, check the County beach map before you get in.

The honest odds

D is the call, but the model is split. F is the single most likely grade at about one in three. C is right behind it, also about one in three. So this could be a bad day or a fine one, and the model can't pick. That's what low confidence looks like.

One strange number: the NOAA buoy off Scripps reads 75.4F. That's warm water for November.

The Scripps pier camera hasn't posted a fresh shot since October 28, so there's no picture to check today.

If you're going

Go early. The wind is light before 9, and the tide sits near a low slack around 8am before it climbs to high around 1:48pm. Tonight's low hits about 9:33pm, close to zero.

Monday looks better on paper, a C at 10 to 14 feet. Tuesday dips back to D. After that the 10 day sits at C through November 10.

This is a beta model. It's a read, not a promise. Check the full La Jolla forecast before you load the car.