East Coast surfers often lust over the consistency and quality that California delivers on a regular basis. But come fall, if you’re an East Coaster living on the West, you inevitably and ironically find yourself dreaming about back home.

Why is this? West Coast transplants get fun surf year round (in all shapes and sizes), so why should it really matter if the East Coast turns on for a couple weeks?

Well, I’m sure we could have fun with a complete psychoanalysis of the surfer mind. But at the core, I think one answer is: you can’t reason with hurricane season. And because of that, we’re drawn to it. Surfers aren’t a rational breed.

There’s an unparalleled rush to it. Sometimes you cash out big, sometimes you roll snake eyes. But that experience keeps you rolling. It’s like gambling.

You could score the best waves of your life, you could get totally skunked, or your home could be vaporized (storms destroyed my apartment while living in Florida in 2004). All surfers live for the chase. But for East Coasters during hurricane season, the chase takes on almost mythical proportions. It’s magnified, intensified, contextualized. “Dude, it hasn’t been this good since ‘95.” “Bro, these are the best waves I’ve ever scored in my life.” “Man, my house got totaled and the wind’s been blowing 50 mph onshore for a week straight.”

And when you’re fairly wave starved the other 75 percent of the year, this polarized excitement is like an adrenaline shot through the breast plate. So we Right Coasters living on the Left observe this from the outside and, for at least a little bit, we’re right back there, at the proverbial slot machine once again. Even if it’s just in a vicarious day dream.

That said, while I do miss the thrill, the unique smell of the autumn air (kind of like “napalm in the morning”), and surfing in boardies at an uncrowded backyard spot going Richter (a spot that is crappy most of the year) with a only couple good friends, I don’t miss empyting out the soggy contents of a roofless, mold invaded apartment into an overloaded dumpster.

I can rationalize that, at least.