I'm thinking about creating a surf log to get a long term assessment on how my beach breaks on certain swells and such. Obviously, swell direction is definitely a legitimate factor. My question is though, how does swell direction in degrees relate to it's actual compass direction?
it's the same thing. look at a compass it has degrees on it. 180 is due south, 90 is east etc. you'll need to look at the buoys to find the exact angle of the swell.
Surf logs are a good thing. I do the same exact thing for every sesh dating back to 12-2006. It's insane how much I can remember with it.
one thing to remember is that some buoys report swell angle in the direction the swell is going TOWARD. The two Corps of Engineers directional buoys 1/2 mile off the delmarva coast read something like 340-350 on a steep south swell...so the swell is moving TOWARD NNW. This can be confusing because the offshore NOAA buoys read in direction the swell is coming FROM. So that same swell would be reported as SSE by the NOAA bouy since is coming FROM SSE. I keep a surf journal back to the late 1980s but is intermittent before 1998.
