Some are calling it a 50 year storm, others a 15 year swell. However you want to look at it, the waves hitting the west coast last week have been epic. The swell on January 6th 2023 now going down in the history books as one of the biggest days for surfing in California. A whole bunch of different surf spots were all-time with light winds and sometimes hard offshore. Here’s a recap of some of the best footage that surfaced after the first round of swell. More waves on the way!
San Diego
Black’s Beach
First up let’s go to Black’s Beach, one of the stand out spots to get huge and ridable during California’s 50 year storm. SoCal Surfer was filming on January 5th, check it below.
And on the next day Brad Jacobson was shooting even bigger waves at Black’s, here’s 15 minutes of madness!
La Jolla Cove
Down the coast a little at La Jolla Cove were big waves too, and thanks to Surfers Of San Diego we can see just how large the surf was at this more sheltered spot.
Swamis
Now here’s a short clip of Swamis going off! Filmed on the 6th of January when the XXL swell was at its peak, credit goes to Dylan James for this one.
Orange County
Seal Beach
Up in Los Angeles the waves pumped on the south side of Seal Beach Pier, Hannah Morse was filming all morning so check his video below.
Los Angeles
Lunada Bay
Lunada Bay was easily triple overhead with some waves breaking even bigger. John Kay was shooting in 4K with his drone so we can all see just how epic it was.
Santa Barbara
Rincon
Next it’s up to Santa Barbara. Rincon wasn’t quite as big as some of the breaks further south, but still some solid surf to be had.
Sandspit
Now let’s check out Sandspit, which was going nuts with huge waves slamming into the sandbank. This next video is from January 5th.
And Scott Gudhal was there on January 6th to film the insane waves that were pretty much maxing out Sandspit.
San Francisco
Fort Point
There were few protected breaks that saw some clean sets despite the size and ugliness of the majority of the places. Waves rarely surge into the San Francisco Bay, but the bomb cyclone gave surfers at Fort Point some enjoyable waves.
It’s been an unreal start to the year, and the west coast had a great run of surf before these XXL California waves in January 2023. There’s even more big swell forecast for the next week or two, so take a look at our California surf cams to watch the waves live!
