All of the storms for the beginning of January 2015 are looking like they will push out up and over our swell window and be massive swell events for Europe. However, due to the shear magnitude of the storms a long period NE kickback is forecast for much of the early year along with some background swell from the initial push off the states.

A Historical Look From the past few years of surfing Puerto Rico.

I decided to manually go through the month of January for the past six years and look at the reports for each day. I counted what I would consider the “good” days and even remembered some of the days specifically for being epic. To be considered “good” the surf had to be at least chest to head high and have glassy conditions somewhere. Here’s what I found:

January 2014: 11 Good Days of Surf

January 2013: 14 Good Days of Surf

January 2012: 8 Good Days of Surf

January 2011: 11 Good Days of Surf

January 2010: 15 Good Days of Surf

January 2009: 15 Good Days of Surf

As you can see January normally has good surf. Will we get another 2012 skunker month? Will we get a 2009 or 2010 rager? We will have to wait and see, but my bet is on something in between. Most of the “good” days came early in the month each year. Since we’re looking at a NE swell pattern for this entire season (and past two years now) I don’t see us getting non-stop big surf, but instead a steady flow of OK sized surf in the beginning of the month. After that the rest of January may be somewhat quiet. I’m predicting a mediocre month for surfing Rincon in January 2015. Probably 10 good days of surf in the whole month. I really hope I’m wrong! I hope it goes off the entire month, but the weather just isn’t cooperating right now.

The North side of the island will consistently have more size than Rincon due to the open exposure to NE swell, but the wind has been fairly strong this December as it often is this time of year. The heavy winds look like they will continue throughout January. That means the form will suffer.

November might have one more big swell to surf.

For the most part, we’re going to get nothing from the flurry of cold-fronts that will be sweeping across the United States. Even though the US will be getting Winter in full effect, we remain warm and calm down here in Puerto Rico. At least the nights will start cooling down though. Almost all of the storms are forecast to push out and away from our swell window on model runs. The trends in the model runs have been consistent on this each run. But one storm is the wild-card. The main image above depicts would could take place on the 23rd of this month. If that does happen, we could be looking at a nice N to NNE swell with a decent period around that time. That far out anything can happen, either it can deepen even more and pump out a massive swell and waves for a week or it can follow the same pattern as every other storm and give us nothing but weak background swell. I personally don’t see it backing down. With all of the other storms avoiding our swell window, the models have been fairly consistently in putting a major dip in the jetstream again with a deepening storm around this time period. So I’m pretty sure November will get another big swell towards the end of the month. The bad news is that we probably won’t see much surf here in Rincon until that happens. Isabela and Aguadilla should be fun though on several of the days it’s flat here. Just make sure and mind your manners, the crowds could get heavy.

Looking at the weather here’s what I see for surf in Puerto Rico:

The GFS and other longrangers still aren’t calling for a dip in the jetstream into our swell window so that means NW swells are out until the end of the month. However, I do think we’ll continue to get fun medium sized waves from the weak fronts that will continue to pull off the states. Looks like Europe will get mad swell in October from the current setup. Lows will explode in the far North Atlantic. Since they will be doing this at a far distance and poor angle for Rincon, this means more NE background swell with a longer period on the good days. I may sound like a broken record on that and don’t take it to mean that I’m completely negative all the time (though weaker NE swell in Rincon does tend to annoy me) – that’s just weather pattern we have right now. It was also a common pattern/problem last season. I think it’s just the theme of things right now. I’m anticipating a good season. Honestly, I see some regular surf for October, just not too big and bit on the mushy side. A NE swell in the 15 second range or higher at 3-5ft makes for some awesome surf at just about every surf spot in the area, so that’s something to look forward to mid-month.