I think you might be on to something: I am by no means a weather enthusiast or expert, nor do I live in California: the El Niños building up in 1997 and 2015 had similar seasons, 2023 not, the current fast onset and wave seasons (including good surfable waves in winter) match especially well with 2015. 2023 was the exception but also slower onset. So good surf conditions in NorCal might be a visceral leading indicator for fast onset El Niño.
I don't know enough about climate science, but south swell usually is the result of west-to-east storms coming off of Australia. In Hawaii, this summer's south swell has been extremely consistent big swells. I imagine it's something like the west coast off South America heating up causes the balance of the southern hemisphere off Africa to counteract that.
I think you might be on to something: I am by no means a weather enthusiast or expert, nor do I live in California: the El Niños building up in 1997 and 2015 had similar seasons, 2023 not, the current fast onset and wave seasons (including good surfable waves in winter) match especially well with 2015. 2023 was the exception but also slower onset. So good surf conditions in NorCal might be a visceral leading indicator for fast onset El Niño.
I don't know enough about climate science, but south swell usually is the result of west-to-east storms coming off of Australia. In Hawaii, this summer's south swell has been extremely consistent big swells. I imagine it's something like the west coast off South America heating up causes the balance of the southern hemisphere off Africa to counteract that.
Here is an article about the heat wave in Europe: https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/excessive-heat-...