Thanks again

[surfnfever]

Well I keep reading the complaints And maybe yall just do better here in ENC Called for a swell on sunday all last week Yes it changed from day to day , Last I looked sat it said it would clean up late sunday , But First thing I did sunday when I woke up was check the weather it was already offshore , Packed and headed down , Now the forecast did change over night and they were calling for offshore around 8-9 am Point is I knew all week to plan on surfing sunday sometime , Makes it easier when you live an hour away and have a busy life ,to know days in advance to be ready

[Swellinfo]

glad you scored

[surfnfever]

In my book you guys rule . Only thing is you miss a sw swell in the alantic beach area alot , But your forcast does show that it,s going to be sw swell and I know to add a foot or two to the E I forcast which is all I need , You are calling for small surf sat but it has sw swell in It I,ll have my eye on it Maybe knee high will be waist high in the right place

[MFitz73]

there are a lot of people who overreact when questions come in about a missed swell. I honestly think it is the most annoying thing for someone to chime in "its a free service, you dont have to use it"... People sound like they are satisfied with something that obviously can be adjusted.... (actually I dont know that it can be adjusted, Im just thinking it can)... but I would like to hear from the people that run the site, why was the swell missed? Is there anything that can be done to help the forecast not miss that action?
that being said, I live on the beach. I just look out the window to see what's happening. But in the idea of getting things right, is it possible to address those misses? is it a certain swell direction that doesnt get picked up or is it just the speed of the weather system that creates the miss?
thanks for the site swellinfo!

[Swellinfo]

MFitz,

It is a continuous effort to improve the forecasts... When we do get negative feedback, we try to look into sources of error and how it can be alleviated in our automated approach. There are some big projects in the books to continue to make Swellinfo better.

[mitchell]

is it a certain swell direction that doesnt get picked up or is it just the speed of the weather system that creates the miss?

MFitz,

Here's my take on the past few days....Friday through Monday. This has to do with the E facing Mid Atlantic area and why we had unpredicted swell.

There was some persistent NNW/N/NNE wind fetch up around Cape Cod and in the Gulf of Maine between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia that was creating a bit of N swell for the mid Atlantic area. NOAA Wavewatch III is one of the major swell models and did not "see" this small N swell production happening up there. NOAA WWIII predicted basically flat conditions for the Delmarva/VA Bch etc. and on Monday it was 2-3 feet @ 12 seconds all day.

My theory is that the models (mainly NOAA WWIII) dont do a very good job of forecasting these steeply angled north swells for the mid atlantic. Small changes in wind direction and velocity up the Gulf of Maine is the difference between NW swell heading out to sea, and N swell sneaking around Cape Cod in hitting from Maryland south to the OBX.