Using Wind Guru - help please

Sin1981

Hello there,
I'm new to surfing, my nearest beach is Strandhill. I've gathered that wind guru is the best guide for surf conditions. Would anybody be willing to explain what I need to look for on windguru, there is so much information on the page...?

I know offshore winds are ideal (Easterly/SE winds for Strandhill), but what do I need to know about the following:
Wind Speed (also, what do colours mean?)
Wind Gust (again colours??)
Period
Height
Wind Direction (what about wind from directions other than E/SE)?


Bear in mind I'm not looking for massive waves to learn on.
Any advice appreciated!!:)
Thanks.

rodento

Zoom into strandhill using this site

http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,560745,835342,4,10

You'll see that the beach faces NW W SW so on wind guru you are looking for ideal wind directions of NE, E, SE.

That makes for ideal winds

Now for swell...

Zoom out on the map...

You'll see that in order to reach into strandhill, swell direction will have to be westerly to northerly to get in ( or massive south westerly)

So macth up the swell directions with the face of the beach for ideal conditions.

Now height

Doesn't take much clean westerly to create waves in strandhill so for a small surf it'll work on a little over say 1.2m westerly, little bigger for northerly and a massive one for southerly or south westerly swells

Look at this site for swell direction

https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_DOD_area.cgi?area=ngp_atlantic&set=SeaState

Arrows for direction

Wave period is just the power of the wave, the bigger the better or cleaner/faster more powerfull waves

Good little guide with topo's is wavefinder, shows exactly what you need yo know from windguru for each break you surf, order it online at

http://www.wave-finder.com/

Look at the topo below, shows a little map for each break with ideal swell direction, easy to work out the rest


Also well worth checking out this before you travel

http://www.strandhillsurfschool.com/page/main_beach

Mickeroo

Sin1981 wrote: »

Hello there,
I'm new to surfing, my nearest beach is Strandhill. I've gathered that wind guru is the best guide for surf conditions. Would anybody be willing to explain what I need to look for on windguru, there is so much information on the page...?

I know offshore winds are ideal (Easterly/SE winds for Strandhill), but what do I need to know about the following:
Wind Speed (also, what do colours mean?)
Wind Gust (again colours??)
Period
Height
Wind Direction (what about wind from directions other than E/SE)?


Bear in mind I'm not looking for massive waves to learn on.
Any advice appreciated!!:)
Thanks.

Hi

I've not surfed Strandhill so I can't really give specific advice, but you already seem to know what conditions are good for there in terms of wind and that anyway. I'll explain your headings as best I can

Wind Speed (also, what do colours mean?)

Ok well the less wind the better, if there is wind you want it to be offshore as you know, but if there's absolutely no wind, even better! Basically the colours change with the strength of the wind, I always go with the beaufort scale when I use windguru, so its force 1, force 2 etc. you can change it to knots, km, miles etc if you want. You'll see a littte thing you can click beside where it says "Wind speed", when it's beaufort scale it says Bft.
So the colurs, basically the colours change as the wind speed does, for force 1 or 2 it's usually white, if it's white then that means there is pretty much no wind, which is a good thing, even if its not offshore,when its that light you can still get good waves. As wind strength rises the colour changes to blue then green, I find force 5 is about the limit where the wind gets strong enough to interfere, even if it's offshore, the waves will still be clean but they can be hard to catch with the wind blasting you in the face. After green it goes yellow then purple, red, etc When it gets into those colours you're talking nearly gale force, a beginner shouldn't really get in the water when the wind is that strong, I wouldn't even go look at the surf when it gets to force 6 or 7 unless I know a sheltered spot.

Wind Gust (again colours??)

Exactly the same as windspeed except its just the speed of the odd gust as opposed to the constant regular windspeed, so it could be force 3 mostly but you might get the odd gust of force 5.

Period

Wave period is basically the length of time between each wave or the amount of time it takes for 2 successive waves to pass one spot. As swell spreads out form a low pressure system it sorts itself into sets of waves of the same speed, basically the higher the period the more powerful the waves should be. There's whole books you could read to fully understand swell. 9 seconds is the minimum period I'd want if I really wanted a surf, 10 is good, 11 not bad either, 12 and up is perfect. If the swell is big its better to have a bigger period as it is more likely you'll get a lull between bigger sets so you can get out back, big swell with a low period could be a nightmare.

Height

Height is just the size of the wave basically. Height of a wave is measure on the back of the wave not the front so the waves can sometimes appear bigger than you'd think. I can't speak for strandhill but my local break keel will have a surfable wave from about 1m and upwards, thats 1m with a decent period though, if the period's not great I'd want the wave size maybe 1.5m and up. That would be longboard territory though. For a beach break anything above 3.5m could very well be mush, just too big for the beach, thats when reefs and points are worth a look, some beaches hold swell better than others though so it's hard to know and I'm not sure about strandhill. One thing to note, windguru gets its swell from offshore bouys so it can sometimes say the swell is bigger than you might expect, its good to compare with magic seaweed which seams to compensate for this.


Wind Direction (what about wind from directions other than E/SE)?

Basically you just want a light offshore breez or no wind at all, if the wind is light then you can still have some fun even if its onshore.



I hope this helps, sorry if it rambles a bit. Just check the forecasts before you go out then you'll get a better idea of what works and what doesn't. The more you analyse the forecasts yourself the better you'll get at it. Compare and contrast as many web sites as you can, also read the sticky threads for beginners above. Happy surfing.

Zygnoth

Just a few other notes:

Period gives a good indication of whether the waves are groundswell or windswell. Over 10s is usually considered groundswell. I've surfed both types but groundswell is the most consistent with the waves generally coming from the same direction and, if at a good sandbank, generally gives good consistency at the peak. Windswell tend to come from different directions (relatively) and are more inclined to add together forming peaks in different locations.

As Mickeroo and Rodento said, period is related to power. The wave height does not always accurately follow the period. In my mind, most swells tend to follow a certain pattern:
1. First, small waves with long period. These are my favourite as I like to longboard. Long times between waves and easy to manage lulls for getting out.
2. Larger waves, period drops a second or two. These are probably the best waves for shortboarders as they have the height and are quite clean
3. Largest waves, period drops. This is usually when the surf starts to go from good to less good. The waves won't have the same consistency and (at my closest beach) the largest waves tend to close-out a bit so I try to avoid the largest swells.
4. Medium waves, low period. The swell will be dying off now and will be the least consistent.

If you were heading surfing for more than one session, I'd recommend printing out the windguru for that area and taking it with you. Take a few photos and match up the surf with the windguru predictions.

Also, the predictions are every three hours on Windguru. If you've the time, arrive three hours before a session or three hours before the 'surf gets good'. I've managed to sneak in some great sessions in busy spots doing this with only a few people out.