First, let’s take a look at the next three days of tides for Clearwater Beach, which should be a good guide for most of Pinellas County. I see morning incoming tides with big outgoing swings in the afternoons.  That means the morning incoming tides are going to be your best tides.

Friday looks like a gradually changing swell direction, making the swell start from the south and fill in north.

Friday early morning looks almost like nothing across the whole coast. There’s a little field of almost southeast wind right near the coast.  Whether or not that direction of wind will create surf is questionable.

The frame below from 1500 hours (3pm) is the first frame I can see that will certainly be creating surf for north Pinellas. That 20-25 knot wind field looks solid, waist to chest at Honeymoon (a notoriously knee high spot). That suggests to me that the biggest surf on Friday will be around evening, the longer you wait the bigger it will get.

I’m also seeing the winds that are expected to blow from 25-30 knots already appearing in the northern gulf. That wind field gets bigger and the fetch only grows longer as time goes on.

Below is the last frame with the strong winds as a large wind field.

The winds fall back to 20-25 knots with west wind/west swell on Saturday. The winds appear to go light to moderate throughout the day.

I wouldn’t expect any light onshore winds at least until
Easter Sunday. The second to last frame that’s showing up on this three day model at 2100 hours (below) shows that 20-25 knot west wind field in the middle gulf, south of Lousiana. That’s what’s going to be creating our cleanup on Easter Sunday.

I don’t see too much light or offshore winds through this Easter swell. Saturday cools off with a high in the mid 70s, enough for a spring suit. Saturday and Sunday look warm. This is a somewhat unusual couple of swells we’ve had the past couple weeks. One strong cold front late season isn’t all that unusual. Two strong ones back to back is pretty special. Have fun! Leave your comments below.