Just wanted to commend you on the fine job you are doing on your forum. Its probably one of the better that I have seen and also one of the most attentive. However..... your cams and reports could use a little help. At least where I am from. In the Florida section you have Daytona, Ormond, Sebastian etc... Sebastian is a surf break, but Daytona and Ormond aren't really a specific spot. Literally the best spot in the state is not even on your report (that would be NSB Inlet and also Ponce side) Though Sebastian gets decent its nowhere near as consistent and good as the other two above areas. There are a few target areas in Daytona like Sunglow Pier but very rarely does anyone surf Daytona (unless they are a tourist or for some reason it is actually good.) Don't bother with Cocoa (lol) it faces in the wrong direction! So please give us the inlet report and scrap the Daytona hotel cam. (unless you want to see Canadian tourists in their banana hammocks) Also a Bethune report would be great cause its a long drive just to check it out and it often fires pretty good! Bethune is like Ormond in that the beach is a totally different contour from Daytona and NSB so its hard to tell what its like down in Bethune just by checking NSB. There are currently cams in all of these spots, maybe you can just widget up or something. Anyway, not complaining, just trying to better your report. Thanks.... wavehog1 Can anyone think of somewhere I forgot?
Bingo. Anyone who relies on the cams needs to stay at home & keep on trying harder to figure out when to go surfing. Not taking a potshot at you Wavehog; just def agreeing with The Seen.
What _do_ you rely on? Right now my system works via a combination of: 1. Swellinfo spot forecasts for the closest spots to the spots I go (i.e. if I want to surf Boston, I kinda average out between Hull and Gloucester) 2. Buoy data (i.e. if the Block Island buoy is over 6 feet I get my a** down to Rhode Island ASAP) 3. My (very partial) knowledge of the swell direction of the various spots combined with the forecasted swell direction/source (i.e. a southeast swell from outside cape cod is gonna bounce off cape cod and miss Boston) 4. Me saying "Gee I wish I understood how tides work" / going to spots that seem to work on all the tides 5. Looking at the closest cams to get a general idea (i.e. "oh ****, I see 50 surfers going for the crappy random closeouts at First Beach and crazy waves on the Narragansett cam -- seems like Rhode Island is going off") 6. If I get to the spot and there are no waves + nobody out in the lineup waiting out a lull in the waves , drive aimlessly up and down the coast until I do find a wave
Yeah agree with the others who said use the raw data from buoys and local knowledge. For years SI did not have Surf City NC listed. Once they added it the model it uses is off. Surf City (Topsail) will be bigger than WB on a south or southeast swell but the text to the left does not show it, in fact it will show the size as smaller. That is where local knowledge comes in. Just take the buoy data get the NOAA NSW forecast and learn to predict it yourself. Remeber this site is free, sign up for surfline premium and see if it gives you any better data.
Where I go it's swell, wind, tide. Not necessarily in that order. Most of the time, I just go as long as the wind isn't originating from the dark side. There's usually some fun to be found in the ocean.
I take forecasts with a grain of salt. You're better off making your own forecast based on what the weather is actually doing out there or what it has done recently. Looking at maps of the entire ocean and finding strong winds aimed at your beach, with a large area of fetch, finding current wave heights, doing a little math.....
For example: you can use this site, (which i don't for this) but this site is great too. Pulling up the current GFS winds for entire east coast USA you can see the large area of fetch over bermuda from low pressure aimed at the carolinas. Probably safe to say you can grab a small wave board and find surf tomorrow and friday. See screenshot.
Ohyah I forgot to mention wind... although my usual thoughts on wind are like, if I haven't seen waves of any sort in a long-ass time, I will still try to catch 3-foot 6-second blown-out windswell during offshore winds anyways...
they also just host 3rd party cam's and reports. they don't sponsor their own report/cam... that costs $$, Money i'd rather get spent on upgrading the model. Especially when surfline's reports/cams are free
I use the swell info app for local winds, tides, quick check, weather. That's where I enjoy this site. So yeah SI, THANKS FOR A GOOD SITE!
yea, doing something right for sure the HI forecasts are a little funky, like when they call for it to be 2-4 it is 2-4 foot face, but when they are calling for 6-8, its like 6-8 Hawaiian. So at a certain point, the 'scale' changes. There are better sites for HI, but not nearly as entertaining ones. anyone know any good euro or asian/indo sites? MSW is donkeyballs
I've found that specifically for the Rhode Island spots I frequent swellinfo seems to be _way_ more accurate than Surfline, at least in terms of the forecast model -- the surfline reports are great in theory but usually when I am sitting near Boston at 6:30AM and there is a swell trying to decide "hmm, do I drive north or south" it seems like the morning reports are never uploaded yet, or when there is a swell expected to hit mid-day the morning reports saying "yep, still flat" aren't very helpful either.
This is definitely my favorite forecasting site, the forum alone is the most entertaining site I venture to on the interwebs, or as George W. put it, on the google's...besides maybe, my friend's hot mom...but that's just 'cause I have a thing for cougars. I will say that if you don't take the forecast with a grain of salt, and do your own forecasting that you are going to miss a lot of decent days. Take for example today, the forecast for the spot I went to said 2-4 and in the red...it was 2-4, but not red...not the cleanest, but I had an s-load of fun this evening. Stoked, and thankful for every opportunity I get to spend time doing what I love more than anything!
Yesterday afternoon was decent for sure. clean too...i mean the winds were basically dead calm all afternoon, at least in Delaware they were.
"Bingo. Anyone who relies on the cams needs to stay at home & keep on trying harder to figure out when to go surfing. Not taking a potshot at you Wavehog; just def agreeing with The Seen." First off, I was merely pointing out a few things that could make the report on this website a little better. Second off I would rather glance quickly at a webcam to check the conditions then play meteorologist for two hours trying to figure out the angle of the dangle! I like to spend my time in the water not at home comparing weather charts and swell data! Sure that's fine if its night time and you're trying to forecast for the next few days but if you just want to run down the street and jump in the water for a few than a webcam does the job just fine. You said you were agreeing with seldomseen but yet you don't even know what he is talking about! "Online spot misinformation can be a good thing." Think he is pretty much talking about misleading people on the internet so the good spots don't get crowded. Not ways to best calculate swell info.
Yeah, we must have crossed paths yesterday, I'm guessing you we're out at the same spot I was last night.
