Question about wave heights

here on the ec 5ft means 3ft.2-3ft means flat.its basically the opposite of Hawaii.for instance,it says waist high today but check a cam,its flat

 

On the east coast, when the report says 2-3ft it is usually around 2-3ft. Meaning 6ft would be about head high because the average head is about 6ft high. It is reporting the size of the breaking wave. I've never really understood how or why a double overhead wave would be reported as 6ft but maybe just because I grew up on the east coast and we rarely get big waves.

 

Because it's moronic. There's plenty of places that get as big as hawaii that don't report wave heights like that. California reports it just like the east coast.

 

maybe they just want to make seem like bigger waves to scare away hoales or maybe they are super methed out and they think the wave are bigger.

 

it certainly wasn't flat today, my friend...had a blast, winds died down a little.

 

your right idk wtf i was thinking ha i forgot it was the other way around

 

Agree...its wasn't clean but there were some nice lefts coming through this morning. if the WSW @5-10 wind forecast comes through for tomorrow morning, it could be clean and pretty fun.

 

Wave heights are measured off the back in purest terms so it's about half the face or so. Here is a great article about it http://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/8357-how-to-measure-wave-height-in-surfing. The more common way of stating wave height now is by the face or surfable area so 6 ft would be head high to a 6 ft person.

 

So teahpoo is 2 foot when it has a 25 foot face

Just saying. Asinine way to measure a wave. Thank god the people around here don't give a surf report like that. How exactly can you see the back of a wave from the beach anyway? Dumbest **** I've ever heard.

 

No you don't. I've seen the reports. Maybe YOU do, but not the reports. A waist high wave is not flat. It's waist high and I know I'd be pretty pissed off if someone was calling a waist high swell "flat". Flat is exactly that....flat. Unrideable. Call the wave height as you see it and forget this macho crap. Surfline calls a waist high swell in California waist high. And California has some of the easiest going mushy waves out there and well as spitting barrels(blacks). Something for everybody.

 

Good lord

These measurements aren't based on how an actual wave measures to you, but the heights are for a dude standing next to a wall and transferring these heights to waves.

1 foot.........Knee high
2 foot.........thigh to waist high
3 foot..........chest high
4 foot.......... a foot bigger than chest high
5 foot.......... head high(actually like 12 inches bigger than a 72 inch male)
6 foot.......... a foot bigger than head high......look at your house....look at your doors......aboot the height of the door frame thing,
8 foot(don't ever say 7 foot) getting sizeable, a couple feet overhead.......again look at your house, see where the wall meets the ceiling....that's 8 foot.....you people with high ceilings piss-off

Anything bigger, besides New England point breaks, is victory at sea, wildly out of control conditions.....

Once a decade a few beachbreaks will hold a 12+ swell...........Very rare.

These measurements are consistent with 25 years of reading Californian surf mags, Greg "Grog" Masanko's Grog's Surf Palace Surf Report, Mr. John's Surf Unlimited Surf Report, and Surfers Supplies Surf Report.

This is the correct way. And y'all will use it.

 

This is complete nonsense.

 

i think you got it wrong because here in the south we use a different scale its called the beer to waves ratio scale. if you have enough before you go out a ankle wave in jersey of course it a double over calf here, like i dont know where yall get this head high crap... its called eye ball high, and the best height of all is cock high when you can really fuk the wave the way you want to.

 

the reports use buoy data. 2-3 ft at short period is actually 2-3 feet. 2-3 ft swell hitting the islands at 18+ seconds is about head high. So yes, and no. That front of the wave vs back of the wave nonsense is just people trying to justify not knowing what they are talking about.

 

The reports I see on the East coast mostly have a relation to body heigth unless ones talking about off shore wave heights. Also our continental shelf drags down wave size and we're left with a mushy short period wind swell. I'm glad to see big wave chargers calling 40 feet what it really is...40 feet not 20 feet. BTW, if its double overhead here you may not make it out...no channels here.

 

these "scales" and their cute summer pro tag names dont evne matter. just surf and do it well.

Benny "dude how were the waves"
War CHild "they were awsome. head high island scale"
Benny "so like waist high eastern seaboard scale"
War Child "nah mayne head high island scale would be waist high western scale or thigh high eastern seaboard scale."
Benny "gopro footage or it didnt happen."

 

Thanks for bringing up the wave period. The longer the period the bigger the wave. You should remember this when you are looking at forecasts.