How do you Forecast?
swellnet sucks now.why do you have to sign in to check the surf.i was sitting there clicking on report for ages before i realsied i had to sign in.....over it
^^ No you don't.
Not to sure what you were doing wrong but you don't have to sign in the check reports.
Ben,
There are so many different sources of weather data and wave model outputs as well as real time observations available for free over the internet that it can get confusing.
Also there are many sites that supply wave model output for a certain location but vary between each other, whether they are at diffent geographical locations or some tweaking of the data by the site. Therefore it become even more confusing.
The basic tools that you need are a good prediction of the surface winds within your swell window, coupled with the wave model period data and from there you can build up an idea on the timing, strength and longeveity of the swell event.
If you keep an eye on the storm systems in your close to long-range swell window and then compare it to what's reported at the beach over the following days you will start to build up a knowledge base to work with.
This is all well and good until a weather system throws a curve ball at you, which they often do, as no system is ever the same and then you have to make a judgement call on your experiences.
Forecasting keeps you on your toes all the time, and as with every new science it is constantly evolving and with new tools and resources being developed nearly every day.
So as I live out west a bit, and the closest beach is a half an hour drive, I usually have to check good ol' swellnet to tell me whether it's worth the trek. I was just wondering how you get from whatever info about the weather you have, to predicting that there's going to be a 3ft swell in bondi? Seeings as how there're all those other beaches that swellnet doesn't cover, I thought it'd be cool if I knew how to forecast it myself.