The Big Red L

We used to look for the big red “L’s” on Joe Cupo’s channel 6 weather report.  The “L’s” designated the low pressure systems from where most New England surf was generated.  Lows moving up the coast from the mid-Atlantic specifically, turning the storms into what are called Nor’easters, primarily because they churn the sea with strong and blustery northeast winds.  Oh sure, every surfer on the East Coast prays for hurricanes and tropical storms, but those are hit-or-miss affairs in general.  Entire seasons might go by without a single tropical system pushing any swell into this corner of the country.  But Nor’easters, they’re the bread-and-butter of New England surfing.  Often bringing stormy, rainy or snowy, or both, types of precipitation, they also yield hit-and-run type swells that may only last a day or two, maybe three if we’re lucky.  The pattern is a stormy day of northeast winds that require a south facing shore, followed by howling northwesterlies that back around after the storm has spiraled off into the upper Atlantic.  These winds groom, and bring sunny blue skys, but they also tend to flatten the surf rather quickly.  Nor’easters aren’t as sexy and don’t usually garner the same amount of hype as the tropical systems, but they oftentimes yield better and more predictable surf.  Sometimes, like the first storm of this season that followed on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, they pump strong and large surf, along with snow and ice and everything nasty where only a surfer can conceive the option of “play” amidst the utter chaos of these unnamed beasts…