Don’t miss Mother Nature’s fury right from your cozy waterfront rental home. Chesterman Beach is front row center to some of the wildest storms on this coast.

And the winds do most certainly come to Tofino. Between October and May, a good storm can blow in once a week, sometimes bringing 120 kilometre (75 mile) winds and 12 metre (36 feet) waves.

So what is the source, the culprit behind all this nasty weather? It’s called the pineapple express.

Usually the ensuing storm begins as a tropical gale that starts swelling near Hawaii and is swept eastward by the rushing jet stream, slamming into Vancouver Island’s exposed coast. The constant procession of waves emanate from Japan’s sub arctic current, journeying westward for two to five years, through one low pressure system after another.

The storm watching show is about to begin, too! From November through March, the never-ending procession of storm-driven swells, some four stories high, born far to the west, will traverse the Pacific to end their passage on these shores.