Winter is seen as a time of year when people can get all cozied up in their homes, relax, and drink hot chocolate. Here in San Diego, winter brings much more than low temperatures. As winter settles through the Pacific coast, Californians are presented with numerous stormy winter swells. This means waves. Big, powerful, and gnarly waves. So fun that residents squeeze into their thicker wetsuits just to drop into at least one of those beautiful set waves. Rain? Who cares? Local surfers are stoked to paddle out to the sick conditions. La Jolla student Astrid Egan describes that the winter swell causes Windansea surf spot to “wall up, close up and make good steep conditions that cause the barrels. I like a wave with power, size and a steep face to make turns,” and that is exactly what winter brings to the Pacific coast. 

For some, these killer waves are just too powerful, but not for the La Jolla Surf Team! Sophomore Coral McIntyre paddles out almost every day and explains how the winter swell contains all sorts of waves. She says, “Sometimes it would be really stormy and huge, but then it dies down a lot.” Coral and her girlfriends always find a way to have fun in any conditions mother nature gives them. She describes how “some people take the competitions really seriously, but all of us girls have fun.” Locals are taking full advantage of this year’s swell, not letting a day go by without fitting a surf sesh into their schedule.