Corona Open J-Bay - Early Forecast
Following the action in and out of the water during the Brazilian leg of competition, we're now just a week away from a wave everyone loves, Jeffreys Bay. Visually, you can't beat ruler edge, drawn out lines of Southern Ocean swell wrapping down the famed point. That and the favourable viewing time in Australia through our late afternoon and evening.
Currently the southern tip of South Africa is being bathed in swell with back to back storms delivering high-quality surf ahead of the competition window.
This activity looks to continue right up until the lead up of the event window next Thursday, before taking a little breather.
This will be thanks to a broad area of high pressure sliding in across the south of South Africa during the middle to end of week.
The opening day should see a moderate sized pulse of mid-period S/SW swell in the water, generated by a frontal system swinging in from the South Atlantic early next week, generating pre-frontal W/NW winds ahead of a tailing fetch of slightly stronger SW winds while exiting J-Bay's swell window.
With Jeffreys being so sheltered from any swell arriving from the west, this strong track will be favourable, generating a good S/SW tending S'ly swell for the first two days of the waiting period. The models diverge a little regarding the strength of this storm but regardless we should see at least surf to 4ft Thursday, easing Friday from 3-4ft.
Winds on Thursday/Friday could be a little dicey with the morning on Thursday looking best with a light offshore, while we may see devil north-east winds moving in Friday thanks to the high strengthening and moving further east.
Luckily we're due to see the next flurry of strong and persistent frontal activity moving in behind the high, bringing an active second half of the waiting period.
From Tuesday onwards, building levels of at least moderate sized mid-period swell along with favourable winds should develop, though we'll provide another update on this next week.
The below chart is a good proxy for frontal/storm activity, with red = higher pressure and no swell, while blue = more storms and an increased chance of favourable swells.
As you can see we'll see high pressure move in behind all the current swell generating activity right up to the start of the waiting period, then hopefully giving way to swell producing storms. Check back next week for an update on how things are panning out.
Comments
Please Huey.
This. It's been pumping over there for like 3 weeks. WSL curse confirmed.
Looks like the WSL’s blood sacrifice of ELO to appease Huey might pay dividends!
Ha ha ha
Just flicked on the Ballito Pro and saw Wilcox get a real 10 !!
Oh yeah?!
The highlight really was the back & forth between Jacob and Morgs !
Been awhile since I’ve seen a good heat in good waves..hopefully more to come with J Bay.
Here we go..
How technical and nice was that little rail tug and stall.
So many dumb comments questioning the ten on that post.
If you watch the whole heat, and the event in general, of course it’s a ten with no room to move from the earlier scores.
Late drop, technical barrel with a fin free slide stall and massive backhand hit.
Can’t ask for much more than that at Ballito.
That's sick.
By chance, I watched this earlier today. The footage from up the coast is incredible. Very very competent tube rider (and a charger).
Interesting because Jacob was saying forecast was looking poor on ATS podcast. Looks like it’s been alright eh? Well done son. He should excel on the CT (if they improve the wave quality from 2023)
This isn’t a bad recap.
https://www.worldsurfleague.com/posts/518157/jacob-willcox-drops-perfect...
Listen for the interviewer’s accent. Strongest in SA? Almost sounds like a foreigner taking the piss. Love it
watched that heat and it was a cracker
thx craig - fingers are crossed!!!
i love this event so much!!!
Look forward to some "simple surfing"......
Hi Craig, got a link to that chart for the Tasman?
The charts cover the Tasman Sea, look to the right hand side.
I saw that, could I have a link? Google yielded way too many results.
Yep, here ya go..
https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/mofc_multi_eps_family_hovmoller?area=S...
Big blocking highs until maybe the weekend of the 22nd.. then highs again.
Thanks for that. Link saved!
Probably the best comp on the tour even at 3-4ft its ten times better than the last three comps.
Couldn't agree more. And every 1 foot step up from there just gets more jaw dropping as well.
Really looking forward to this one, even if it's only 3ft. Great viewing time, too.
12m 32s, Preach!
Looking at some of the long-range stuff...
Monday 17
Tuesday 18
Thursday 20
Sizey swell and howling offshores. Unless I'm reading it wrong?
Models are still divergent but it's shaping up nicely once that high moves on.
Gonna stick my neck out here
Possibly run days
Sunday 16th - possibly big swell, howling offshores
Monday 17th - possibly big swell, howling offshore
Tuesday 18th - still good, firm offshores
Wednesday 19th - smaller, moderate offshores
Saturday 22nd - medium size, light offshores
Oh yeah!
Goddam he makes it look fun.
Incredible surfing JJF
Craig is it looking like some decent swell on or about the 16th?
I'm reserving judgement for what turns up on the days of contest.
But jeez, JJ does make it look preeety good!
"we may see devil north-east winds moving in Friday"
Devil winds at Jeffrey's Bay, called "Berg winds" by the locals, are a warm Northwest, from the interior of South Africa - northeast is a cold, dead-onshore crap wind, not welcome at all.
Bingo!
Nice.
In my humble opinion...there wont be proper Jbay shaping up until maybe the 19 and 20th when the swell angle goes more south. And thats about it. Window looks average for this time of year and none of those gale force busters of fronts that the place needs to get proper...but never know. Last week drove up there on a whim to find uncrowded and 6ft solid sets 14 sec hitting supers. Bruces was apparently working and 20 guys out and supers had 16 and was 10 x bigger and better, and the forcast was barely over 3m...so the angle came in more than forcast and surprised me with the quality of surf that day.
Yeah not epic, but still decent with plenty of south in the coming swells from Sunday onwards.
Update is here: https://www.swellnet.com/news/swellnet-dispatch/2023/07/11/corona-open-j...
Damn bro, 16 crew spread out down a long point like that is a dream what a score !