Can someone educate me a bit? Why are long period swells more likely to close out and be unrideable than short period swells? I can see why the size of the wave in relation to the depth and shape of the sandbar would make a wave a wave unrideable, but it's not clear to me why the period (which i understand to mean the period of time between swells) would cause a different result. Someone help out a rookie wave scientist here.
huck, i responded to your other thread with the same question. the link I provided pretty there much summed it up. This is how it works, the longer the wave period the longer the wave length. When these waves move toward the shore, they feel the ocean bottom and refract to become more parallel to the coast. Since the long period swells, have bigger wave lengths, essentially this creates one very long wall. That is why on long period swells, beach breaks tend to close out, while the point breaks handle these waves much better where you can very long waves that peel on and on down the line. Its hard to explain without pictures, but that is the best I can do first thing in the morning!
You've got a little something stuck between your teeth. You better get that out before it turns into a cavity.
I know surfline is the enemy..but for the purposes of this question... they put together a good image describing the refraction tendencies of different periods of swell in their hurricane bill video forecast. http://www.surfline.com/forecast/hurricane-bill-sending-solid-surf-to-the-east-coast_29774/
going for a paddle later on in the afternoon. hopefully it's big and messy with a ****load of paddling and i get loose for sunday.
ya, good thing we have some time to get loose in the friday/saturday surf... god knows i need it... hasn't been too much as of late.
