Winter

[Karlos]

"
There wasn't much else going right.

Hopefully it's back on track, but if not, well at least it's good to have you back.

[Grooter]

Been a good winter down here

[steve shearer]

interesting little pre season, precursor low pressure sputter off the Solomons this week.

and the current has been running downhill most of July/Aug.

[Donweather]

Feck I'm over this sh1t!!!! Spring like conditions in late winter can feck right off!!!

[brownhornet]

Hi Gentlemen/Don,
I have become increasingly curious in regards to forecasting longterm surf that is + 1 month or longer out. So really well before the sites like surfline or swellnet are showing anything on charts. Can you recommend the methods that you use for forecasting or even where to start? Pretty keen to learn some more and really wrap my head around what makes the oceans move and want more than the charts that are on sites as they typically forecast surf once a weather system is in place and pretty obvious in some regards.

I guess Don I have seen people ask you in particular about swell some time out and really curious as to how accurate you are and you methods. Happy for a PM if you prefer.

Jim

[alakaboo]

No one can.
Anyone who says they can forecast surf a month out is a shyster

[steve shearer]

you can;'t forecast surf a month out but you can outline and track the large scale weather/climatological patterns which influence the likelihood of certain weather systems forming.

ENSO state, long wave trough, IOD, East Australian Current, SAM are a few of the indices I keep tabs on.

Using those you usually have a pretty good idea about how a season will pan out.

[steve shearer]

Quiet Winter: Carroll.

Active Winter: Shearer

It was an active winter up here. PLenty of surf.

[alakaboo]

Didn't sound like brownhornet was talking about trends, patterns and probabilities.

[Donweather]

BH, Steve has pretty well summarised it in his post above, and to be honest, Steve is the guru in most of those things he's spoken about in his post above. He knows those way way better than I do. I look to him and look to learn from his comments on them.

[steve shearer]

Didn't sound like brownhornet was talking about trends, patterns and probabilities.

no he wasn't....I was just trying to shape his expectations towards reality.

surf forecasting is always about a range of probabilities occurring , depending on how narrow or broad the perspective sought.

[brownhornet]

Thanks for the replies. I suspect the misuse of one word has fired a few up. I am of course not referring to predicting surf exactly. I am of course interested in the events that lead to the generation of swell and if those can be predicted from more than a month out.

Steve thanks for the replies. I will have a look at some of those leads but in a sense I am interested in all of the conditions that come together to generate a swell event. Not trends as such but genuinely want to gather more information on how things such as ocean currents, temperatures, times of year or what have you combine. There must be some corrections that lead to predictability of swell events that we can see some time out. A bit like the old advice that swell is more evident around a full moon.

So what are the events that are used to determine a good season or month ahead? Hopefully that clarifies.

[el rancho]

A bit like the old advice that swell is more evident around a full moon.

kinda like the full moon this week?

[alakaboo]

I thought it was a new moon?

(That was for Coops)

[brownhornet]

Point taken. Pretty poor correlation given it has been dead flat

[Donweather]

Feck, finally something to look forward too!!!

Although it won't take much to change in the forecast and we could all be dissappointed again (thanks to that fecking sheep shearing isle!!!)

[steve shearer]

whats the summation ?

Lennox-Ballina

June: Exceptional.
July: Average.
August: average to quiet.

Welcome to Spring.

[Trev]

By my reckoning, we're owed about 6 weeks of good to excellent surf.

I'll take mine from this week, please.