If you expect nothing,you'll never be disappointed. Central Jersey got virtually nothing yesterday. What happened? There's virtually nothing this morning,either. And when Saturday was predicted,it fell flat. Sunday was a pretty decent swell late morning and afternoon,but was supposed to be really small leftovers. So, is there a chance we were premature again ? Is it possible yesterday's predicted swell will show up today ? Seems the tiny late spring summer-style windswell is fickle and difficult to predict. Maybe there was waves after dark last night. I'm sure we miss it a lot that way. I find this time of year you have constantly go check it, and sometimes decent rideable waves show up unexpectedly, then disappear before you know it. Often an hour or two here and there it's surf, then it's gone,and many people never even know it !
Damnit Micah, stop Toying with us!!! Can you please make the weather do something right for once, maybe take mother nature out for a few cocktails? If you really cared, you would use your magic swell producing machine to give us some waves!!!
What happened was you were at the wrong spot at the wrong time. Don't get me wrong there wasn't anything spectacular. But, around 5:30pm yesterday I was riding some thigh to waist in central NJ. Those breaks are out there you just gotta know where to go. It was great too only 2 other people out with me.
Simply, less swell was produced than projected by the atmospheric wind models. These quick little S/SW swells can be fickle. There's only like 10 hours of fetch, so there's no gearing up for the models. I knew by checking the buoys yesterday that it was going to be a little weaker than expected.
Glad you caught something decent,aguaholic. The piddly slop wasn't something I'd drive around for,though,and my spot is usually picking up more size than most,and it was size that was lacking.I just wanted to find out Micha's opinion of why it never happened yesterday.I don't blame him, he is the best!
Basically what he said. Just gotta keep a tab on which breaks fire with what type of swells. Which direction, size, wind... etc. Once you know which break will be firing you'll know where to go.
it did look like there was a little more energy on the buoys in the evening time. check the 44025 buoy reading for the last 24 hours: http://ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=44025 look at the swell direction there - SSW. On these S/SW swells, for NJ, this is what I've noticed. If there is a S/SW swell, but real short period 5-6 seconds, then not much gets in there, but when the period is 7-8+ seconds, then you guys are much better off. So, the 7-8 second stuff, didn't show until night hours last night unfortunately. One way to get an idea of how wave height/period/direction will affect your beach, is just get used to checking the buoys before you go out. And, also compare the buoys, to the raw swell data (in the swell plots) that Swellinfo is projecting. This way you can get an idea of how on target Swellinfo is. The swellinfo data points, dont correspond to the buoy locations, but you can use them for rough comparisons.
same kind of deal. shorter period, choppy wind swell built up on Saturday, and long period, groomed up swells moved in for sunday.
the key to a fun session when there are no waves is a retro fish. catch any wave or ripple and they cruise forever.
