surf forecasts

mac123

Is there any easy way to predict the surf cause im gettin sick of drivin across the country on the weekend to find some smashing 6 inch waves. If theres any decent sites or anything that would be great.
Cheers.

cornbb

I like to use

http://magicseaweed.com/Lahinch-Surf-Report/52/

and

http://www.windguru.com/int/index.php?sc=47735

Both pretty handy but of course not 100% reliable.

Shane_C

If you are heading to Bundoran check http://www.bundoransurfco.com/surf_report.aspx

It is usually very reliable.

Also I have heard of "Toms surf report" for Lahinch but I've never found it. Try google maybe.

Enygma

http://www.lahinchsurfshop.com

and

http://www.turfnsurf.ie (Bundoran)

both have daily pics and live webcams.

There will be times that local knowledge and being able to read a weather chart will help you find surf that might not show up on magicseaweed or windguru. Even with the webcams it could be flat there but be head-high around the corner, it's always worth learning how to read a weather chart.

mac123

cheers thanks. how would i go about learning to read weather reports and charts?

Shane_C

Found another one for strandhill, but this one seems a tad optimistic.

http://www.strandhillsurfcam.com/

As for reading weather charts, that just takes time. Try to imagine the isobars (those contours) as mountains. If you were to pour water over the top of one of the mountains, its direction of flow and speed would coincide with the direction and power of wind caused by the isobars.

As for waves, swell is created in stormy areas (centres of low pressure), and radiates out in all directions. I know this is an over simplification, but it could take a while to explain what happens in more complicated weather systems.

Your best bet is to check the charts on magic seaweed. Look at the swell, wind and pressure charts/animations and see if you can see how these three link up.

Just use one of your hourly youtube breaks in work, thats how I learned

nicknack

magic seaweed is the business and links on to the lahinch surf shop. magic seaweed for general swell and further weather forecast, lahinch surf shop/tom's web cam for more a detailed/accurate/recent report. a couple of hours before high tide i reckon lahinch is always worth the drive.

btw, the break right of the headland in inchdoney last sat was incredible, anyone local know if its usually like that, because that is definitely worth the drive. and i'm in limerick!

Enygma

Hi nicknack,
Inchydoney isn't too bad as long as there's a bit of swell around. It cab be pretty much offshore in a westerly so it's usually somewhat clean. The break in front of the headland will work as long as the tide is right.
To be honest though, if I was in Limerick and Lahinch was working...