SI wave height scale

#Belmarscale

 

0'-22' - FLAT
23' - Firing
24'+ - impossible

 

I always go surfing with my entire quiver: 9' Gun, 7'2" semi-gun, 6'8" step up, 6'2" hbsb, 9'2" hplb, 9'6"noserider, 5'6" groveller, 6' fish, 6'4"rocket fish, kayak, jet ski, 12' douchecanoe, and a pair of swim fins and a handplane. You just never know what the waves will be like when you get there.

 

the face in Nj at least

 

Do you really take note of a bunch of wave heights for a few minutes and then compute the average.

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I just suspect many wave height forecasts are based on the output from models that predict average wave heights, or dominant wave heights which might be like the 65th percentile average of all waves coming in.

I think a lot of surfers stand on the beach for 10 minutes, look at mostly the set waves that they would be interested in riding and not all of the in-between waves and then conclude that its 4-6 foot (for example) when TONS of 2-3 foot waves also come in, bringing the average height down to say 2-4 foot and then conclude that the forecast is an undercall because SOME 4-6 foot waves are coming in. Also we tend to look at the "peak" section of the wave which is higher than the shoulders.

Just my 2 cents.

Also, there are spots that consistently just exceed the surrounding beaches and probably aren't representative of the forecast for a "zone" of coast.

 

They base it off the 8-10' principle.

 

they must have measure the faces today because there is no way it was head high where I surfed. Waist to chest high at most.

 

lol actually laughed out loud

 

They measure it with my 23ft Johnson in Belmar while I bench.

 

Don't fergit that SUP witha stripper pole. Git-R-Done

 

interestingly enough, the significant wave height is the average of the top 1/3 of waves. it is a convention that was first adopted when asking people how big they thought the waves were they often gave this number of the top 1/3 of wave heights. from a statistical standpoing it's 4 times the standard deviation of the surface elevation. ... there's plenty more but then you start getting into oceanography

to answer the original question... it's face height. and you should feel lucky that it's consitantly bigger than the forecast.. not everyone's so lucky. also the models aren't as accurate in some places as others. to improve the model there's the + 0 - scale next to the graph of forecasted wave heights . .. this provides feedback for the modelers to let them know when they've under/over predicted the swell events. with out this feed back how is a guy in delaware going to know the wave heights in oregon are under predicted on this or that swell

 

There used to be a scale... But, if you look at the forecast, you will notice it offers a text descsription (ie. head high), and also a wave height in feet (4-5ft), so I'm not sure a scale is necessary at this point, since its pretty explicit.

 

SI kicks butt though, they are usually pretty spot on

 

I actually rather the forecast be undercalled... Then when you do get those 5 ft days that are perfect and uncrowded, you can thank swellinfo.com for calling it 2-3ft

Unless, that is, you head straight to Belmar,NJ where the waves are always at least double the size of the surrounding towns... Just because it's Belmar

 

I agree, usually the text description is spot on...

 

hey bro can i buy the 12' douchecanoe and the ski i want to do tow in one 2 foot days?

 

shaq and tattoo are still arguing about it.

 

For what its worth, nynj, you are my favorite.