If the forecast is wrong or the models missed something why not adjust it accordingly? I’ve known for many years that forecasting isn’t easy so the mistakes and misses don’t bother me in the least. When I go on SI the first thing I look at is the buoys from NY to NC, then the forecast. Sunday and Monday called for 1-2ft (NJ) yet the buoy was 3ft + @ 13 seconds + Sunday and 3ft + @ 11 + seconds today. The forecast had nothing over 1.5 @ 10 sec for both, yet I surfed shoulder high + waves both days. No worries, clearly the models missed it. I don’t understand why SI wouldn’t want to do a little damage control when they see significantly more swell than predicted showing on all of the buoys. If you don’t catch it before 6 am why not tweak the forecast for 12 pm? It just seems a bit odd looking at the graph saying 1.5 @ 10 when at that very moment it’s actually 3.3 @ 13. Sorry, I know it’s frowned upon to question anything that SI does or doesn’t do and yeah I know it’s free. Boo hoo cry me a river. I just think it would be logical to address that in some way. Would you be confused if someone said a gray Saturn was actually a red Lexus even though you can clearly see it’s a gray Saturn?
I'm sure you did but I'm going to double check here.... Did you check the date? If I go to the Forecast tab the report is semi accurate. However it's useless to check the Cams & Reports tab. The cam for 43rd Street in Galveston, the report is from November 14 2011, then you look at 37th Street that one is a little better it's January 3rd this year and Surfside is November 24, 2012.... So I would look elsewhere for the reports and cams. The site is good with the forums, classifieds and, surf trip stuff.
yeh i totally agree with Doug. I havnt surfed in about a month and wanted to just go out on any little bump i found and today swellinfo was reading 1-2ft morning and 1ft in after and it turned out to be 3-4 in morning semi clean and like 4-5 ft clean in afternoon. i didnt expect it at all to be like this, but you just got to check more than 1 website besides swell info.I checked surfline and it even showed today would be 0-1 and they were totally off. SI had knee high when it was atleast waist - shoulder high with some head high sets coming in today. Super fun and even had 2 sessions today even though its the winter but it was totally worth it!
Micah, r u in there!? The main objective of Swell Info is surf forecasting, no? Micah, you’ll comment on “Guy climbs a roller coaster” but not this? Whah? Do you really have nothing intelligent to say about this discrepancy? I knew there were at least chest high waves the second I saw the buoy report. Are you embarrassed by my simple logic or just too sexy for your own website?
The last few days have been very spot-dependent up here in Mo Co... typical for longer period swells, with the southern part of the county seeing much more swell in the water than the northern part. Could be that SI uses the average for the region?
I'm aware of the biases that occurred on that swell... and always look into causes for errors, when they do happen. If there were an easy solution it would be done, and always working towards progression to the Swellinfo system. I noticed other forecast sites were also missing it. You should realize that a large part of the forecast is model based, dependent on wind forecasts from other sources, and that is while you'll see sites across the board missing stuff. You have the right idea by always looking at the buoys, because that is your validation to the prediction and the best way to come up with your personal forecast. Best way for you to help out is to use the spot on plus or minus buttons, and in time will be able to integrate the feedback to help reduce forecast biases.
I use a mix of Magicseaweed and SI. MSW seems to be more accurate for small stuff, and SI seems to predict chest high+ better. I do like that IOP is on MSW, since I frequent that spot more. Our local buoy (that actually tracks wave height) is pretty far away, and I don't always trust it.
That last swell didnt show up on WW3. I've noticed that when a low pressure system comes close to the LI cost and there is a much largerand stronger north wind, than south wind, the models don't pick up the much smaller resulting south swell. However, I've been skunked many times by this scenario.
Are you using the "Spot on" function? I think Micah put it there so you can help with fine tuning your local in the model....
Thank you for taking the time to reply Micah. I'm not familiar with the "spot on" function, but I will check it out. I get the models thing but still wonder if the graph can be adjusted when the buoys clearly show a different situation.
I understand what you mean, and buoy data is being used, but its not such a simple process. But, like I said, I'm always working towards progression and making things better. The Spot On feature, is the plus and minus tabs next to the TODAYS FORECAST.
