Northern MoCo vs Southern MoCo

[stoneybaloney]

How come most of the swells lately are working better the farther south I go? I don't know if its sand bars or the break shapes, but on the last 4-5 swells we've had; it has always been better south. The periods have ranged from 16 to 8 seconds and that hasn't affected things. The coastal portion of Monmouth looks like this from south to north " / " so the north end is more protruding. If you Google earth it, the farther south you go, the more beach there is respectively. Does this mean there is more contact time between the swell and the ocean floor in the south? Does it matter which direction the swell is heading?

[LBCrew]

Hard angled south swells have further to wrap to hit northern mon co, so they loose a little steam. On a swell that has some north in it, it can be bigger in northern mon co than south.

On southerly "groundswells"... swells with periods longer than 10 sec and from the South to SE, like with a lot of the hurricane swells we've been getting... the canyon can suck a lot of the swell in, so it misses northern mon co, while southern parts of the county get the swell.

[stoneybaloney]

Hard angled south swells have further to wrap to hit northern mon co, so they loose a little steam. On a swell that has some north in it, it can be bigger in northern mon co than south.

On southerly "groundswells"... swells with periods longer than 10 sec and from the South to SE, like with a lot of the hurricane swells we've been getting... the canyon can suck a lot of the swell in, so it misses northern mon co, while southern parts of the county get the swell.

So then I'm guessing, most of the time the south is better. It doesn't seem like we get much swell around here from the N/NE. I also noticed the water gets cleaner the farther south I move, but that's another thread.

[dave]

almost always bigger by at least a couple of feet (and better shaped waves) south of Monmouth Cty, always been like that as long as I can remember (25 yrs) one big exception is before & after Nor'Easters, the best time of year to be a MB local - endless shoulder-head high freight-trains, except, of course, its March

[mOtion732]

i got a report from ocean county today, and it sounded like it was definitely better up here (lb).

south swells in our area are great, it's just everything else that doesn't always line up as well as we'd like

[stoneybaloney]

almost always bigger by at least a couple of feet (and better shaped waves) south of Monmouth Cty, always been like that as long as I can remember (25 yrs) one big exception is before & after Nor'Easters, the best time of year to be a MB local - endless shoulder-head high freight-trains, except, of course, its March

Thanks for the "veteran" insight.

If nothing else, at least the patterns are consistent.

[Aguaholic]

Actually, it doesn't go " / " south to north. It goes " / " until it hits Loch Arbour then it bends and faces more east. So, like stated before the swell angle makes the difference.

[stoneybaloney]

Actually, it doesn't go " / " south to north. It goes " / " until it hits Loch Arbour then it bends and faces more east. So, like stated before the swell angle makes the difference.

IMO, it continues jutting out east in the " / " line the whole way (even if its slight)...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...20757&t=h&z=12

[dave]

also, it seems like the sandbars work better down there - I'm talking like Belmar/Spring Lake as compared to Long Branch/MB.

[mOtion732]

i thought you were talking about long branch vs like lavalette..

i agree, it's always a little bigger and better formed there for some reason. could have something to do with the beach? just comparing the two, on noticeable difference is that there is much more beach in southern moco than longbranch.