Winter Swell Hits La Jolla With XXL Waves

One of the Largest Westerly Winter storm swells to hit the west coast causes The Jewel of California to go XXL. With the new month of March marking the change of the jet streams from winter to spring came one of the largest and most unique winter swells that southern California has seen.

A XXL size WNW-NW swell began showing on Saturday afternoon and held for the day on Sunday. The Isle Crew had been monitoring the storm currently located due W/NW of the Coast throughout the week. This intense winter storm produced winds in excess of 50kts with seas topping 45′ to generate this round of XXL swell.

Many of the exposed breaks along the coast were overpowered by the massive swell but a select few standout big wave reefs and beaches were capable of harnessing the energy and saw faces upwards of 20 feet. A select few of the standout breaks saw some even larger bombs.

This size and conditions were easily the biggest and most unique the crew had ever seen in So Cal. Both Saturday and Sunday the winds aimed off shore with light showers passing through the day. The swell was projected to continue but ease some for early week.

Taking full advantage of the swell the Isle crew struck early both days surfing perfect A framing peaks at the beach breaks before heading up the cliffs center stage to see and capture the sets of the day hit the cove. We were prepared with both a long angle leans and a Drone to shoot the action from above.

How big did it get? It is always hard to get an exact measurement of how big these moving mountains of water really are. But, one of the best ways to gage the size is to monitor the rise and fall of the Pacific buoy summary. Another way to gage size is to measure using the height of the surfer on the wave or the length of his board. With the average height of these surfers being close to 6’ feet and the average board length being closer to 9’ we will let you do the math and see what you come up with.