forecasting wind lake lopez

buczacz · Joined: 02 Jul 2000 Posts: 57 Location: Los Angeles, CA

What should one look for as indications of good next-day wind at Lake Lopez?

In the past the water level at Lake Lopez has been held down because of possible dam leaks. What are the sailing conditions like this year.

bprice · Joined: 21 Oct 2000 Posts: 138

Lopez wind is thermal driven. Check for cold fog on the coast and lots of heat inland. Lake level is fine this year... around 75%.

MalibuGuru · Joined: 11 Nov 1993 Posts: 9300

That would be onshore flow (colder weather) turning hot. Once it gets too hot it will shut off. If you search lake level at Lake Lopez there is a chart somewhere out there showing water level.

I'd be interested if anyone knows water temp right now.

swchandler · Joined: 08 Nov 1993 Posts: 10588

In addition to the comments above, it's important to keep in mind that Lopez blows fairly early. It's usually best from 11:00 to 2:00.

bobaron · Joined: 12 Jun 2000 Posts: 5

Water temp lake lopez: Week of May 15th. About a third of folks are wearing shorties. The rest, full suits but then again air temps have been cool [high 60's]. By june, about 60% are in shorties and some folks trunk it. I have seen a lot of 6.5 range sails for folks under 200 lbs over the last few weeks. Yes wind can start as early as 11 am but not uncommon for stuff to kick in in late afternoon too if it cools at the coast [say marine layer comes in at 4] while it is still hot inland. The locals often hope for and anticipate a possible 4pm session.

bprice · Joined: 21 Oct 2000 Posts: 138

I was out today in just board shorts... water temp was fine. Plenty of nice warm air for my 5.7 90L.

buczacz · Joined: 02 Jul 2000 Posts: 57 Location: Los Angeles, CA

Thanks for the tips.. . much to my surprise, after putting up my post, I found a computerized forecast for lake lopez at:

http://www.iwindsurf.com/windandwhere.iws?regionID=128&siteID=1145&Isection=Forecast+Graphs

I could not find it directly from the Lake Lopez wind report page. Perhaps I'm just not looking in the right place. Laughing

bprice · Joined: 21 Oct 2000 Posts: 138

The IW computer forecast for Lopez is worthless. The correlation to actual conditions is in the single digit % range. If you look at the human forecast for the L.A. area, it sometimes will mention Lopez, and it is pretty accurate, but not included enough to be useful on a regular basis.