La Jolla Visibility Today: Still a C, South Swell Under the West

Tuesday morning at the Cove, the water is still high on the rocks.

La Jolla visibility today is a mid C. The beta model has Tuesday at C grade, 10 to 14 feet, medium confidence. That Tuesday line is the latest published forecast, stamped Monday, Nov 9, at 3:13 p.m. Pacific. No newer run is in the file. C is the middle letter. Ten to fourteen feet means you can dive it. A dozen feet is the middle of that range. Medium confidence means the guess can miss.

Surf sits at 3.81 feet, the same Open-Meteo number as Monday in this run. The main swell is 3.15 feet out of the west at 10.55 seconds. Under it sits 1.77 feet of south-southwest swell at 12.6 seconds. Period is the seconds between waves. Monday's second swell was west-northwest, 1.71 feet at 13.8 seconds. Today that second swell has south in it. The model still flags the surf as enough to stir the shallows. It still calls the longer period a plus, easier to time than short chop.

The odds are wide. About 42 percent on the C. About 35 percent on a B. About 16 percent on a D. About 7 percent on an F. Zero on an A. Those are the model's own odds. Mid is mid. It is not a lock.

Tide range is 6.33 feet. Range is the drop from the high sample to the low sample. The NOAA La Jolla hourly samples hit 5.92 feet at 9 a.m. and minus 0.41 feet at 4 p.m. The file does not list the exact minute the tide turns. The model calls the tide neutral, with no reliable read on whether the water is helping. The published window is early to late morning, before the wind builds.

Wind averages 5.89 mph. It is 2.4 mph at 9 a.m. and 5.1 at 11. It hits 9.2 mph at 3 p.m. Gusts in the file top out at 11.2 mph. That afternoon wind can put chop on the surface.

The NDBC buoy in the file, station 46254, reads 76.1 degrees. The model's water estimate is 74.8. One buoy reading is the surface, not the whole column. Rain in the file is zero today and zero over the last week.

The newest Scripps Pier snapshot is Monday, Nov 9, the 3 p.m. slot, captured at 3:01 p.m. The grader failed, so there is no camera grade. Tuesday's frames are not in yet.

The forecast file does not include a county water advisory list. If the Cove was the plan, check the county map before you kit up.

Go early. Keep the expectation around a dozen feet. Full numbers are on the La Jolla forecast page.

Our vis model is in beta and still being validated, so treat the grade as odds, not a promise.