Limit conditions

Stokeswig - thanks for the feed back - we love it even when we're getting it wrong. This system is the first ever to forecast for breaking wave height and is therefore quite experimental and that sort of feedback gives us an angle to look at stuff and improve it.

What's happening though is that these are 'limit conditions' (either end of the scale - really massive or really small) which means that they are the most difficult to forecast accurately - and we do look at the most optimistic scenario which would be a pushing tide and the height on the set wave. If you take a look at the link below you can see that it really was only just surfable and nearly flat - a good guide is when hoping for a session in small waves is - if the wave period is smaller that 10 seconds it's going to be touch and go.

Surfcore Historic forecast: St Andrews on the 22nd Nov

Although I consider that 4ft is the smallest wave that I would generally surf - which on me (I'm 6'1") is just above my belly button on the face - I can't get going in anything smaller.

When we started this site we concentrated on the forecasts initially then moved to other areas like the galleries/articles and forums. So the forecasts are in what we consider to be 'version 1' - we've now reached a point where we can now focus back on the forecasts to take them to the next level of accuracy - and this may involve changes to breaking wave height by moving towards a more traditional surfing measurement where 4ft is head height and 6ft is head and a half.

I don't mean to be 'Seaweed bashing' all the time - but they are the biggest forecast site and a good point of reference on how we're doing it differently. Taking a look at the MSW forecast for the same day at St Andrews and I hope that you agree we are getting it closer - not perfect though.

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sam@surfcore

yeah, i have to say your

yeah, i have to say your forecast gets it right more, the problem may just be that what i would call 2 foot is not your idea of 2 foot, i suppose people can argue for hours about wave sizes. the thing with the msw forecast there is that the swell direction has loads of west in it which is almost guaranteed to create no surf, and their rating does not take this into account, altho it has to be said i tend to look at the actual values rather than stars, as here an easterly swell of something like 6 ft @ 7secs will create good waves, but a northerly 8 ft @ 10 secs will only just be ridable, i think your system takes the direction into account much more because it models it near-shore?
cheers

Ideal swell direction

I've never surfed at St Andrews but it looks a little tucked away and protected from swells coming from the North. We do take into account the ideal direction of swell for each beach that we forecasts for - which feeds into our rating system and St Andrews is set to 55 degrees....sort of ENE? If you want to send me a on beach reports when you pop down now and then use my contact form. It all helps when we're trying to improve it.

Nice one - cheers

Sam
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sam@surfcore

sam, im at uni there (plenty

sam, im at uni there (plenty of time lol)so i check it every day when im there, would you really want me to send you daily reports? sounds like a bit of a hassle for you, if you had reports from all around the country you'd probably struggle to read and make use of them all? but i could keep a diary for a few weeks and send you that, or i could just send it when conditions are interesting, i.e. not totally flat?

also, the comparison with lunan bay is interesting, as this picks up far more swell when there is a lot of north or south in it, yesterday (saturday) being a good example, southerly swell, nothing at all ridable at st as, but lunan was a solid head high, your forecast was spot on for lunan, but not st as, as it seems to give similar sizes for the beaches when lunan is always about twice as big, sometimes more, on anything other than a straight easterly(pretty rare). also, unless the swell direction here is between about 30 to 150 degrees, it needs to be huge to get in, and at those limits it starts getting hit and miss, like yesterday, where i was suprised to not see a wave here.

so not complaining, cos ive got the hang of interpreting your forecast and translating it into what sort of waves to expect, but for someone not familiar with the area etc they might not get it right.
cheers for taking the time to reply btw. appreciate you've got a lo to do running the site.

I love data!

Hey stokedswig - anything you send will be valuable. But don't stress it - if you do go down to the beach it would be dead handy if you made a note of the conditions and the date, but if you haven't got time or some other stuff gets in the way no worries.

But I will take a look at how your reports match up with our forecasts and see if we can smooth things out.
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sam@surfcore

Saint andrews

I know this isn't really the place to put this but I am doing an internship in Leven, Five the next semester and I am taking my board with me. My question was if saint andrews is a decent spot to surf with a 6'8" or is it only a longboard spot? And if somebody knows about the transportation to other spots like Lunan Bay, maybe someone who goes in the weekend to these spote??!! You can always let me know!! My email is fre_valgie@hotmail.com

greetz

Fre X u have mail mate, and

Fre X u have mail mate,
and sam, ive started keeping a log of the conditions every day, pity we've had no ridable waves for nearly a week so its not too interesting at the moment, when ive got a decent amount ill send you the text file if you want.

Brilliant

Many thanks stokeswig - that record going to be invaluable. We owe you a pint or three c|_| (that's my effort at beer mug :) )
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sam@surfcore

no worries at all, if it

no worries at all, if it helps make the forecast better then it helps me as much as you :-). as i said i check it every day anyway so its no trouble