Plover or Nino?

So we begin season 3 in a row at Lefts with no sand, no doubt in no small part due to the Snowy Plover. For the uninitiated, the Snowy Plover is a small bird that breeds on the coastal sands.  Before there was worry of the Snowy Plover’s extinction along the waterfront of the Presidio (Crissy Field), the sand was at 1/5th of the amount that is now present on the main beach on the inside behind Lefts.  Back when the military still controlled the area and had little regard for marine life, the water occasionally ran up to the wall that protects the Gulf of the Farallons National Marine Sanctuary buildings.  Now, and since they restored the Crissy Field Marsh, the water doesn’t come within 50 yards, at least.

Look at this photo on the right from 1993 and see where the water line is.  See how far offshore the breakwater is that protects the observatory out on the pier?

Now look at this photo on the left from May of this year, the breakwater is on shore!  The Crissy Field Marsh restoration completed in 2001 and forever changed the landscape of the coastline of Crissy Field.  And, it forever changed Lefts.  Although Lefts stills has occasion to fire, the current day wave does not resemble what the break used to do.  In some ways the wave has gotten better, on firing days the wave can be accessed much more west of the point, almost all the way to the pier, and that wave can be fast and a good challenge to make past the point.  But, pre-restoration, the wave, when good, seemed to have more power from the point to the inside and also traveled farther, all the way to the cement loading ramp on the inside.  On bigger high tide days, the wave used to even break pretty good to the east of the loading ramp and through the pier.

But, realistically, I don’t think the lack of sand at Lefts itself has a whole lot to do with the plover or the restoration   After all, there were periods in the 90’s with no sand at Lefts as well.This shot below was taken at the start of the 09/10 season, on October 3rd, 2009.  Check out how much sand there was!  I think this might have been the most sand ever at Lefts and this was a good 10 years after the start of the restoration project.  How did this happen?

Let’s look at El Nino history.  From my memory, the best season ever was 97/98 followed by a very good 98/99.  Look at the chart below and see that was the peak of the largest El Nino of the past 45 years (although the length of the 86/87 El Nino looks quite formidable, but I didn’t start skimming Lefts until 1990 so I have no idea what it did at that time).

09/10 was a thin but peaky El Nino.  In real life, this translated to the massive amount of sand buildup at the beginning of that season and led to a great season but by March 30th the sand had left and hasn’t really returned.

Now, look at the graph above again, and compare the recent seasons:

2011/2012 – not bad, pretty decent. Some pretty fun days, but minimal sand really hampered the season.

2010/2011 – worst season on record

2009/2010 – one of the better seasons in recent memory, loads of “fire” days:

[nggallery id=6]

2002/2003 – should have been pretty good, was it? Look at the sand, and is that a plover in the foreground???

Here’s some old video from that season:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrsxHoRB668[/youtube]

Based on the graph, you’d be thinking we were heading into an El Nino, BUT, based on the sand, you’d say we were not.  The forecast on StormSurf says that the next El Nino is 2 years out:

 a neutral pattern biased slightly warm would be good, followed by at least another year of slightly warmer temps ultimately converging in a stronger El Nino 2-3 years out. And historically, this is the ‘

normal’ pattern (a few years of false starts before a legit El Nino forms). We think we are in a slowly building multi-year pattern that will culminate with a real El Nino 2 or more years beyond.

I say hang in there and keep an eye on the sand.  I think the worst is behind us and this year will be pretty decent, just not in the great/excellent/epic sphere.

 

What do you think? Plover or nino?  Or as they say in Ronin, 7 fat years followed by 7 lean years?

 

PS – There’s a new fence along the inside at Lefts, kind of blocking off Inside Pocket.  I thought this might be another beginning of the end, but upon further examination of the signage, we should be OK: