Surfing Waves

I had a frustrating experience today. A surf forecasting website predicted 3-5 foot waves with 16 second periods at high tide for my favorite break. I drove over an hour to find "ankle biters" and long gaps with flat conditions.

Can you recommend an accurate site? If time permits, vote for your favorite in the attached poll. Thanks!

I use Magicseawead and am happy with it. I always look the prediction for the same surfspot (Batu Bolong) even though I surf in other locations. The reason I do this is to get a feel for the prediction vs the reality I encounter.

I can make my own adjustments depending on which surfspot I choose for the day: for spot 'X' 3ft @13s is a big strong wave at a tide height of 2m, but for spot 'Y' that wave is not breaking with that combination of swellsize and tideheight, etc..

So basically I take the prediction as a reference and decide on local knowledge. After doing this for some time I now get enough info from it to do a accurate prediction. It's seldom off.

I must add, after every surf I make a note of all variables included, so later I can look up if a specific spot should work or not. I use this system for finding the best, and more important, the least crowded spot. It works for me.

I go to the beach and look at the surf

oldmansurfer wrote:I go to the beach and look at the surf

Ur so Zen!

I use a handful and have learned via practical experience how to read each of the reports. One repot the period and tide levels are accurate, and I know that 2.3 means an effective head high at a certain break with a given period and tide level. Somedays one site will be reading great conditions, but I know if I have the swell, wind, tide and period I can pretty accurately figure the defacto wave height at a favorite break based on past experiences with those given variables at that break.

Other times at less familiar breaks it is a bit of a mystery and I put two boards in the car to cover whatever conditions I find.

The more you surf and especially the more you surf the same spot and be concious of the report for that given day and take careful notes, mental or otherwise of how that break reacts to longer periods, tide changes, swell height and path, wind, etc then you will be in better tune with that break and be able to more accurately anticipate the conditions given a set of variables.

I use Wisuki (favorite), Surfline, magicseaweed, indosurflife, and glassy.

Windguru.
It gives you the data (windspeed, swell direction, swell period, etc) rather than a forecast and so you need to do some of the work yourself, but I find it to be the most accurate. I also use it for long-distance weather forecasts

Tudeo wrote:I use Magicseaweed and am happy with it...I must add, after every surf I make a note of all variables included, so later I can look up if a specific spot should work or not. I use this system for finding the best, and more important, the least crowded spot.

Great suggestions! Magic Seaweed is a better site. It shows primary and secondary swells as well as a probability factor. This is where I can get more organized like you and take notes comparing reality with the prediction.

Yep, Help From Kelp!

Know your break is better, you get surprise surfs when the forecast defendant don't
Less crowded. But remember phone a friend is not an option!

This post made me think of a next generation surf forecast website:

How if u could make a personal profile where u could fill in ur ability, quiver and wave preferences (left, right, fat hollow, etc). Also u could set auto-syncronise on ur phone's GPS coordinates, so the system always knows ur whereabouts. U also fill in how close the prediction should be with ur profile settings before it triggers action.

This way the website system could sent u an automatically generated message when ur prefered wave is closeby and it could recommend which of ur board's would be best for that specific wave.

Off course a system like this would be a great hit, every surfer in the world would use it. As a result the system could also predict crowds.

U can have a paid premium subscription to let the system guide u to less crowded spots

Now I publicise this idea, of which i am the owner, on the condition that whoever picks it up and gets rich by it will give me free luxury surf-resort, of my choice, access for the rest of my live.