bathymetry

Go to NOAA websites and search around--you never know what you might find.
Maybe your home is on a fault line, or a giant sinkhole....

 

taking san reconne to the next levele. I approvee

 

https://search.usa.gov/search?utf8=✓&affiliate=noaa.gov&query=bathymetry+charts

Here ya go, ya lazy foamy

 

I like to map me a bottom contour

 

I think the latest version of google earth shows coastal bathymetry?

I'd look at spots like the one you mentioned on LI, along with maybe Blacks (Scripps Canyon) and Nazare to compare the canyons and see what makes each spot tick

 

on the eastcoast,theres really nothing to see the floor is flat and that's it.when I think of bathymetry I think of a place like mavericks or nazare that have a super deep trench with a shallow shoal or whatever its called that makes the wave jack up.

eastcoast u just have a flat floor,u can go to the beach on a flat day in the summer during low tide and walk 400 yards out in some places.when theres a sandbar,like say after a big storm,u have a little ravine in the shorebreak where u step off and its deep,and its like a lagoon,then u hit the sandbar and its super shallow,then u pass that and its just flat floor.

 

Shipping channels at EC ports create narrow channels, one of the best breaks down here is due to that.

 

These guys have some awesome visualizations of shoreline/offshore bathymetry that are fun to look at: https://www.geodynamicsgroup.com/projects/. They were the ones responsible for the analysis of the disappearance of that Carteret County NC spot that was in a Surfline article somewhat recently.

 

I have gotten 2 words for you guys:

The Belmar

 

https://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/bathymetry/maps/previews/F-77.pdf

Notice the "dump sites"... what do you think they do there?? Aqua bombs?

 

Nearshore bathymetry has little to do with how smaller, shorter period "windswells" interact with the shoreline and how waves break. But it does have a lot to do with how larger, longer period swells work. Anything out of the SE over 10 seconds will start to feel the bottom in NoMoCo. That doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it does... the Hudson Canyon starts sucking in swell at that point, leaving a large swell shadow from about Asbury Park north along the NJ coast. It's been well overhead in AP and damn near flat in MB on a number of hurricane swells over the years. East swells and pure south swells are not as affected.

That's why the magic numbers at my local are 10' at 10 sec out of the south. When that comes together, it's nothing short of epic. Any swell with longer period or larger size... or any swell with another angle won't make the magic happen.

 

The magic numbers at my local are a bottle of pinot and a fireplace.

 

you sir have never seen or experienced some of the legenday deep gullies around fall season here in Chucktown, some of these can be as deep as 4feet+ at low tide

 

Definately plenty of places on the Delmarva where offshore bathymetry has a huge impact on surf conditions

From North to South:

Hens and Chickens Shoals almost completely block E-NE swells at lower tides from certain spots.

Spots on both sides of Indian River Inlet...Cove...Dumps....probably get their larger size on certain swell angles due to wave focusing from concave swell refraction (focusing) from the offshore shallow shoals off the inlet. But that focusing means its commensurately smaller nearby.

Mid town/Uptown OC has a few of spots that get bigger on E/NE swells due to focusing of the swell as it comes over outer bars. These also have the effect of turning the long lines into a-frames which helps. On big days like yesterday you can see the swells peak up on these outer bars like 1/4 mile offshore.

OC inlet is probably the most complicated spot as far as offshore bathy goes...it is just full of channels and banks both north and south of the inlet. The can be your enemy when they block swell, but on really small days, it does seem like they might concentrate some peaks and turn a knee high longboard day into 3 foot peaks if you know where to look.

Honestly, you could get a chart and see all of this stuff, but i'm not sure it would translate into surf prediction because its so damn complicated. I feel like its more about surfing all of those spots in a bunch of different conditions and starting to connect the dots.

 

Sounds as if you have been eating at CR Sparks.....

 

Agreed. There's this one spot by me. It's my "big wave" spot. It's very different then the surrounding breaks. Always makes me curious. I want to know the why. At the end of the day all that matters is it works.

But while on the topic ill throw my theory out there. See if anyone thinks it makes sense. Might be hard to explain without knowing the spot but here it goes.

So its a normal beach break. A 2 or 3 minute drive from my go to. This is LI. The swell angle is the same. So at low tide it is just like the other breaks in the area. But on big swells or seems deeper. Which is why i like it because it doesn't usually close out when other spots are. What throws me off though is that on low tide, waist or chest high.... it can be dumpy as hell. So its not that it's a deeper spot in general. It breaks really far out. And it gets really deep almost immediately when you step in the water. Really sketchy shore break. So my theory is on bigger swells you got more water. And because it is deep from shore to the sandbar, maybe that water in turn makes the sand bar deeper.

After typing that all out i realize my theory is retarded. But I already wrote it. So whatever

 

today would be the day for full on bathymetry on the ground recon...its termed a #BLowoutLowTide, low tide with 40Mph gale blowing offshore retreating the water to extra low and exposing places that have never been exposed

 

That's awesome. Imagine the gullies that will be exposed and you could plot sand trajectories in real time. What are you gonna be wearing for this event?