Surfing Waves

here can you see how big the waves are near you.

http://www.windguru.cz

Nothing beats a quick look at the pressure charts, tide tables coupled with knowledge of your local breaks for getting predicting surf.
The biggest problems with windguru and magicseaweed which use very simillar if not the same computer forecast models is that whenever strong winds are forecast then it automatically puts in a high wave size.
Both guru and seaweed regulary forecast waves of 20-30ft for my local breaks Which of course is absolute nonsense.
Waves of 12-15ft are forecast for bournemouth pier tomorrow whien in reality there will be 2-3ft of wind chop, more if im lucky as i feel a bit of cold coming on and may have to take the day off!

KS

i prefer magicseaweed

Amen to the forecast thing!

I posted on Magicseaweed just asking what was going on. Ben was fine but generally there was a for-oar.

I was asking for info on what I was doing wrong. I didn't get much help. I had to help myself;
Over time I figured out the only way to do it was by looking at the real conditions and comparing it to what the forecast said to calibrate what it means.

The info I found I give to you now, that I wasn't told,
for south uk anyways is;

- the south coast forecasts are the most iffy. More iffy then north Norfolk even. I haven't seen a day getting my interest enough to get me wet. Many, many disappointments at Bantham and Bournemouth area reefs; completely different on the north shore

- the north coast forecasts can give you a feel for what's going on, but it's better to look at pressure and swell period as well. There are only forecasts for westwards-ish facing beaches so the sheltered bays I had to guess a bit.

- you kind of notice patterns like, the good bits are when the swell is passing through to somewhere else, or moving around a bit, so you get the swell but not the wind

- it's forecast way bigger than it is at the shore

Basically it gets time to calibrate the forecast to the area, unless it's North Cornwall which seems to be fairly easy to read.

I think it's pretty key to compare different forecasts too... I find magicseaweed almost ALWAYS exaggerates... I use a combination of surf-forecast.com, surfline.com, and magicseaweed... seems to sort of work so far, I like surf-forecast the most at the moment but... who knows. Better to get down and have a look