How to you know when there's good surf?

delanest

Hello all,

New to surfing, been out a few times now. I need to know how to check if the surf will be good on a particular day etc. I've seen the charts on irishsurfer.ie but what exactly will make good conditions? High tide/wind ..bla bla bla


I'm also off the strand hill today and tommorow.

Is this a good place to be this w/e? - cheers

Moonbeam

www.magicseaweed.com

delanest

Cool, cheers for that, this is strand hill today and tommorow

http://magicseaweed.com/Strandhill-Surf-Report/51/


Still not sure about the interpretation. Are the wind speeds good? How big will the waves be?

bert_man

I find magicseaweed to be unaccurate a lot of the time. I use www.windguru.com and find that to be the best
BASICALLY
For good surf you need 2 things to be right -> swell and wind

Generally offshore wind = good, onshore wind = bad

No swell = no waves.

Swell direction is important too so say if you have a swell coming from the west, being on the east coast is no good cos Ireland's in the way.

So say you have a break on the west coast facing west......for there to be good surf here you're going to need winds blowing from the east, northeast or southeast and a swell coming from either west, northwest, or southwest.

So to work out if your chosen spot is going to have good surf on a certain date. Workout which way it faces then go to windguru and check the swell direction and wind direction.....a point to remember with windguru - the predictions up to the 3 day mark are pretty good, for predictions over this there's a good chance something will happen in the meantime which will change the conditions.......so don't go putting all your money on a spot being good in a week based on the predictions.

seanyd

cheers for that,

swell's 9ft with wind direction east. Taking this as standhill beening pretty good on Saturday. 4.5ft swell on friday evening so might go out anyway and see whats it like.

bert_man

nope fraid not - check out this link

http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/Europe/Ireland/North_West/index.html

look at the location of strandhill and the direction it's facing

and then

http://www.windguru.com/int/index.php?sc=47721

it looks like it coulda been ok this morning.

Swell direct coming from the west until Monday which means that bit of land in north mayo is in the way (you need a swell coming from the north or northwest) plus strandhill faces north north west so you need a wind blowing towards the north north west, i.e. coming from south south-east.

On the day - you could always go to www.strandhillsurfcam.com

delanest

Damn :mad: , but get your point

so I guess we would we better off head a bit more north to Bundoran

j0e

thrusday looking as if its going to be a sick day :P

http://magicseaweed.com/Portrush-Surf-Report/56/detailedLongRange/uk/

Gone West

Yes magicseaweed looks good, but it is madly inaccurate.
I find that they dont take into account local conditions much or at all.

Everywhere gets pretty much the same wave forecasts.
If you look at places like Brandon bay/Inch, they will get the same forecast as Strandhill or bundoran for example. This is rarely the case

Also, I wouldnt reccommend looking at the wind-based forecasts. They dont really matter a whole lot, unless youre looking at wave forecasts as well.

We need to get some stickies and stuff set up here on the forum.

Dub_Ster

i get a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of my stomic

Black Swan

Storm surf. Biggest swells, but can be choppy. Mostly surf the Wedge near Balboa, So Cal. Watch for rip tide and undertow near shore.

Spastafarian

Blue_Lagoon wrote:

Storm surf. Biggest swells, but can be choppy. Mostly surf the Wedge near Balboa, So Cal. Watch for rip tide and undertow near shore.

You surf the wedge? Shouldn't you be dead?