Sealion Cove • Statistics for January

January: Midwinter Force From the Gulf of Alaska

January is deep winter at Sealion Cove. Average surf heights sit near 2.9m (9.5ft) with a mean period of 11.8s, so the North Pacific storm machine is running on all cylinders. The swell rose shows the bulk of the energy arriving from the SSW-WSW quadrant - SSW 8.6%, SW 10.3% and WSW 9.1% - while true W-NNW directional swell is rarer, making up only about 6% of the total. This means the cove is sometimes shadowed and uneven, but when the swell straightens out from W or WNW and combines with those long 11-12s intervals, it can turn into a heavy, bowl-like winter wave.

Wind is the big saving grace. Ideal offshore flow from E, ESE, SE and SSE occurs 41% of the time, often tied to the landward side of a high-pressure ridge, and it keeps the faces reasonably clean. A bitter average air temp of -1.9°C and water temp of 5.7°C make it a serious hood-and-glove session, and with 6.64mm/day of precipitation you can count on stormy, cold, raw conditions between the good ones. When the wind clocks into the W/NW quadrant, the cove becomes a lumpy, windblown mess.