Ground Hog Day Surf & Culture Report
Phil Says "Six More Weeks of Winter!"
Phil's official forecast as read February 2nd, 2009 at sunrise at Gobbler's Knob:
Hear Ye Hear YeOn Gobbler's Knob this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2009
Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators
Awoke to the call of President Bill Cooper
And greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths
After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers,
Phil proclaimed that his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were World Champions one more time
And a bright sky above me
Showed my shadow beside me.
So 6 more weeks of winter it will be.
So there you are, Phil has spoken. He said nothing about the surf, but we're imagining that it will probably be as crappy as it has been for the first half of the winter. Spring starts March 20th so let's hope things pick up by then! Meanwhile, we have sunny skies this morning (so Phil could see his shadow) and 20 miles visibility. Winds are offsh0ore by 3.9kts and the sea surface is glassy. The air temperature is 52.3º and the water temperature is 57.9º. Low tide is at 9:09am +1.1' and high tide will be at 3:10pm +2.4'. There'll be some minus tides later this week in the afternoons, so unpack your clamdiggers. Right now we have the buoy reading a swell out of 205º which is pretty southerly. It's a 1.6' bump and we're calling it 1' to 2' at all of the beaches. Not looking very deluxe, but we understand there's some weather coming our way later in the week. We'll keep you posted.
A couple of photos from the weekend:
The first is some of the Bishop team sporting their "Live Like Sumer" windbreakers. It turns out they cancelled the Hennessey Classic for lack of surf. It's now scheduled for Feb. 14th at the Hermosa Pier. If Bishop can manage to finish in the top 4 positions, they can go to the State Championships! Let's hope the surf has picked up by then...
The second photo is a shot looking down Catalina Ave. as the thousands of Superbowl 10k participants come loping down the street. At one point the Professor grabbed a beer that one of the participants had tried to throw into the trash can. He started toasting the runners and discovered that LOTS of them had free beers! We had never thought about having a beer break while running a 10k. It might have prolonged our running career. At one point while there were still a lot of stroller people running by, he yelled (appropos of nothing) "Louise! Where's the stroller? AND BABY KARL??" To their credit several people looked around, but none of them stopped... Ahh, next year...
"When the surf breaks, we'll fix it..."
The Professor!!
