La Jolla conditions
La Jolla visibility today, Oct 27: a C by a hair
Ten to fourteen feet. The model almost said D. It almost said B, too.
The Dive Pro beta model has La Jolla at a C today, Tuesday, Oct 27. That's 10 to 14 feet of visibility. But this one is closer than the letter makes it look.
The model doesn't just pick a grade. It hands out odds. Today C gets about a 37 percent chance. D gets about 33. B gets about 29. A gets nothing. So the C won a three-way race by a few points. Call it a C with a D on its shoulder and a B not far behind.
Why so close? The main swell is about 2.7 feet from the west at roughly 4 seconds. Four seconds is barely a swell. That's wind chop that wandered over, and it stirs the sand instead of rolling under you. Under it sits a south-southwest pulse, about 2 feet at nearly 13 seconds. That one has real push on the reef. Surf tops out around 3.4 feet.
Wind is the good news. The model has it light all day, topping out around 9 mph near 4 PM with gusts about 10. The 9 and 10 AM hours sit around 2 mph. Its best window is early to late morning, before the breeze shows up.
Then the tide. High is around 9:47 AM at about 6.6 feet. After that it drains hard, all the way to a minus 0.8 foot low at 4:57 PM. The model counts a falling tide as a negative, because outgoing water isn't pulling cleaner offshore water into the Cove. If you want the better water, go near the high. If you want the tidepools, that afternoon minus tide is a good one.
The water is still warm. The model's estimate is about 76 degrees, and the nearshore buoy it uses reads about 73. The model flags that as well above normal for the date. Late October doesn't usually feel like this.
Rain check. The County put a General Rain Advisory on the La Jolla stations on Oct 23, after last week's rain. Look at the County beach water quality map before you put your face in.
Looking ahead, the model has a C every day through Nov 3. Sunday, Nov 1 now shows a little under an inch of rain, about 0.9. Runoff after that is the thing to plan around.
This is a beta model. It hasn't been validated yet, so treat the grade as odds, not a promise. If you get in, tell us what you actually saw.