The National Weather Service office in Eureka has issued a high surf advisory along the North Coast as waves up to 28 feet are expected Monday morning through Tuesday evening.
The NWS Eureka is urging beachgoers to use extra caution near the surf zone and stay off of jetties. A 67-year-old woman was swept from the North Jetty just after noon on Monday and was flown by a Coast Guard helicopter for medical treatment. Her condition was not immediately available.
“Large breaking waves along the coast will lead to increased wave run-up on beaches with waves topping and washing over large rocks and jetties. These large waves can be erratic and unpredictable. Use extra caution near the surf zone as these large waves will be capable of sweeping people into the frigid and turbulent ocean water. Mariners traversing the bar are urged to exercise extreme caution or stay in port until the threat subsides. Please contact the U.S. Coast Guard for information regarding harbor and bar closures,” the advisory states.
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This article appears in In the Lab.
I suppose if it is predicted often enough it could happen. We have lived in Manila for 4 years and hear the surf every waking minute. We are life long sailors and have even sailed in 25 foot breaking seas 100 miles west of Neah Bay in Washington in 2013 and 19 foot breaking seas just South of Santa Cruz in 2017 and have a keen interest in the sea so every big wave prediction draws us to the beach and to the harbor mouth and the waves have so far have never showed up more than 1/3 the predicted height. We will go look today and tomorrow morning. I do recognize that sneaky waves probably come during the hours of darkness though. We use the Solspot surfing website for wave predictions and the biggest waves we have seen predicted for Humboldt were 52 feet a few years ago. I was at the beach in Samoa at dawn and then directly to the harbor mouth. About 15 foot was the biggest wave then and a couple hours later when I took my wife for a second try. Still though, if we were trying to sail into the harbor that day I would have spent the night out at sea.