Surf NJ

sorry, but...

2005-12-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

I apologze for not updating this for the past few weeks, things at work have been pretty hectic. I promised that i would try to incorporate a surf forecast into our website at wunderground.com, and i am working on that, but until then, you can check out my NE winter weather blog on the featured blogs pager at wunderground.com, for info on storms. I will start working some surf related topics in there also. I will still try to update this blog weekly, and feel free to harass me if i dont

wxsurf@gmail.com

weekly update

2005-11-16T22:16:00.000-08:00

Well it looks like tomorrow will see some leftover swell in the early morning, but stiff winds will blow it all away as the day progresses.

The best chance after tomorrow of seeing any swell is early next week as a low pressure system develops off hatteras. This sytem might not have the wave generating power a storm of its intensity might normally have, due to a low pressure gradient caused by a large area of low pressure to our north. Keep your eyes on the marine forecasts for monday or tuesday next week

Tim

I love San Francisco, Ocean Beach is one intense beach break.

Building

2005-11-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

Looks like we have some waves in the water right now, an extremely sloppy short period easterly type swell. this will get bumped up a little more throughout the day when south winds start to kick in. The waves will be pretty sloppy all day, but conditions will improve tomorrow. As usual, the chances of seeing anything really surfable after the winds switch west overnight is somewhat slim. Best chance for 2-3 foot waves in clean conditions is right at sunrise.

good luck

no waves

2005-11-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Time to take up knitting,

doesn't look like we are seeing anything substantial until next thursday, and thats at best a quick shot of hard south swell likely to miss NJ.

Can't wait to move to 'frisco

Nothing at all

2005-11-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

forecast

today flat
tomorrow flat
the next day flat

... flat

I dont see anything substantial through the next week Tomorrow has the best chance at a small bump in the morning, but dont hold your breath. Update sometime over the weekend

Times they are a changin'

2005-10-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

Well Folks, things are about to change around here. I will be leaving the east coast for more wave rich stomping grounds. I will be starting a job at The Weather Underground I highly suggest you check out the site for weather information. Their forecasts are far superior to the weather channel or accuweather. Anyway, I will continue to do this forecast but probably less frequently, more like once a week.

Once I get settled in out there, I will likely begin to develop a surf forecast. It will be free and hopefully be a little better than surfline's.

I appreciate all the support and I will continue to provide the forecast for the forseeable future.

and now the forecast.

Tomorrow and wednesday will see a decent size swell. The winds will be out of the north/Northeast tomorrow switching to NW/W on wednesday.

The swell should be huge tomorrow, and drop significantly by wed. Its going to be tough to predict any heights for wed, the situation is just too complicated. What is pretty certain though, is that by wed evening, we will be looking at some pretty small waves.

How quickly things change

2005-10-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

Looks like we are in the running for a swell coming up in the next week. Hurricane wilma looks like she will move up the coast producing some sort of swell, as for now the swell models are all over the place on what the surf will be like, so I wouldn't go out and buy that 8'6 rhino chaser just yet. My guess is that friday or saturday are going to be the earliest days to call this one. Right now I would start thinking about the possibility of freeingsome time in your schedule a little for sunday evening through tuesday.

more as the models settle down a bit

Great day!

2005-10-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

Well the am saw some monster sets, The pier was firing with sone of the bomb sets easilly double overhead. I was amazed there were no Photogs out in the afternoon.

Tomorrow should be really good in the morning, but fade fast through the day, so find your high tide spot and go early.

as for the next shot at waves....

I'd take up skateboarding

Weekend shaping up

2005-10-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well Thursday is really the first day i like to make solid wind predictions for the weekend so here it goes

The wind should go west sometime saturday morning. This swell will clean up and the windswell part will fade away quickly leaving the longer period swell to linger around through the weekend.

As for size. around 10 feet for saturday morning, fading through sunday afternoon to around 4-5 feet.

both days should be pretty exceptional

TR

Picking up

2005-10-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

We will be seeing the surf rapidly increasing today to about 6 feet by evening. Seas will continue to build through the week. Saturday we expect to see a NJ clean up.

Winds may go N on thursday or friday, so some of the more protected N spots will be working.

Still on, But...

2005-10-07T14:23:00.000-07:00

Its looking like the wind is going to be a little bit screwey. The latest batch of model runs has the wind either going offshore saturday evening, or pretty much immediately switching to N.

There are worse things than a N wind, if you find the right beach. The swell is still on track, a bit of a drive is all you need.

Good luck. Hopefully the wind will cooperate on saturday afternoon for a big offshore session.

good luck

Tim

Its on!

2005-10-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, this weekend will definitely see big waves. There is almost no question at this point.the X factor is the wind. Right now predictions are for the wind to go offshore sometime midday saturday. who knows when it will really switch, but it will sometime on saturday.

as for sizes, think mar. 2004 we had a huge south swell, a couple of guys caught it HUGE at the shark river inlet. My guess is that some sets right as the wind switches could approach 15 foot faces.

Sunday we will have north winds to contend with. I can think of 2 places to go on N winds that absolutely fire, but i'll leave it at that.

the swell along with the N winds should hang around at least through tuesday.

good luck, if i dont get to post tomorrow, this will likely be my last post until monday

TR

weekend still on track

2005-10-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

Looks like the swell this weekend is getting more in the likely to be at least something category. Right now we are looking at the setup for a Big south swell that would be likely to clean up on saturday sometime. First guess at the size is somewhere in the overhead range fading throughout the day. Sunday may see some waist high or a little better waves also.

For the remainder of the week. Look for a small bump in size for tomorrow afternoon, but east winds will likely be putting a lot of chop on it.

More updates tomorrow.

tr

still on track

2005-10-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

Looks like we are going to see the waves maintaining their current size for a bit longer. If you are up north this is little consolation i'm sure but for "The O.C" we will be likely to keep seeing those little longboardable maybe even shortboardable waves in the water.

This could pick up to maybe stomach high on tuesday through midweek.

As for this weekend...

Looking at a system that could move up the coast this weekend, and blow in some good old nor'easter type surf.

BE WARNED!!! this time of year, models get a little dicey on these types of storm, the atmosphere is changing from a summertime pattern to its wintertime pattern. It is not unusual for a weather model to be forecasting a big storm up the coast for a few days, and then the storm completely won't happen.

anyway, i would guess that by wed/thurs I will be able to come back with a better forecast for this weekend.

Summary:

Look for Mon/Tues to be about the same as today was

Wed/thurs and maybe into friday look for a bump up to waist-stomach high in the best spots. Thursday has the best chance of seeing some offshores, although every day has the potential for AM offshore breezes

Friday and beyond, all eyes on our storm

More updates!!!

2005-10-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well i'm back to a more regular schedule of updates, i have som dial up internet here. its hard to give real full picture but i should be able to give the heads up early enough.

For the week starting tomorrow.

look for the waves to stay about the same as they were today. in NJ that ranged from ankle high up north to waist high in some OC breaks. from now on, ocean county will be referred to as "The O.C." Tomorrow we should see some light winds to start out and maybe even some A.M offshores.

The interesting feature of the week is next saturday. som emodels are predicting 15 foot waves at 9 seconds. this will most likely not be the case, but it is likely that we will see some possibly sizeable windswell next weekend, so dont touch that dial!

-TR

apologies again

2005-09-30T09:01:00.001-07:00

I really wish i was able to be making forecasts more frequently. anyway, i hope you all managed to get in the water yesterday afternoon. down here in seaside park, we were surfing head to a little plus fun barrels from when the wind switched till dark, my arms are still jelly.

we should see leftovers fading through the weekend and then picking up a little bit on tuesday. nothing much to speak of, and we are going to be dealing with light on/sideshore winds through most of the period. Should be some fun ones at low tide.

Summary: Look for waves in the knee-thigh high range for the next few days. early next week maybe a bump up to waist high.
winds will be light and variable through the period mostly out of the southern half of the compass

sorry again

2005-09-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

But my house currently has no roof, and therefore i cant live there. I will only be making posts on mondays and thursdays until about oct. 10.

Sorry guys, but there isn't much i can do about it.

tr

Its on,

2005-09-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

I think...

so I am not in jersey so i cant back up anything i say, but looking at the bouys it looks like the swell has hit. and good. The latest reading off long island was SE swell at 12.5 seconds 6.6 feet. Get up as early as you can and go. maybe you can find some light winds.

as for the rest of the week, tomorrow is biggest but the swell will do a slow fade into the end of the week, so we should get some favorable winds in there somewhere

tr

Philippe

2005-09-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

So i have been checking out some satelitte images, and i believe that philippe is going to deliver the goods.

Look for The swell from Philippe to start showing some more size later on today. I believe the swell that we are seeing this morning is the first wave (haha) of the swell that is really going to hit well in the few days to come. The problem is going to be a NE wind that will be kicking up its own windswell starting on saturday.

Right now it looks like tomorrow will see some modest waves with good conditions, at least in the morning.

Saturday will see bigger waves, with unfavorable winds (for NJ) but LI might get the good winds and get hit well with the SE swell.

Sunday the winds may head back to SW giving us a good shot at clean conditions on what may be the best day of the swell.

I am heading up to Rhode Island for this one, so i probably will not get an update in until after the swell has passed. If i get a chance i will try to update on friday night or saturday during the day.

Hope you get it good

TR

Philippe

2005-09-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

Well philippe is not looking like much of a storm at this point. He still has some high winds, but mostly the storm is sheared apart.

The good news, philippe is movinf in our direction, that makes for a longer "virtual fetch" if philippe can keep his shit together for the next few days we could be seeing a 6 foot ocean swell at 16 seconds, which is pretty rare for the east coast. If the winds were to be favorable on fri/sat/sun when this thing arrives, there could be some firing surf to be had. If the winds are N or northeast, it might be time to make the trek to Long island, or somewhere north of there, which is where i will be!

I dont want to hype this swell too much, there are no bouys out there that can see this swell until it gets close to us, and i want to believe it, but until Philippe ets better organized, or i start to see some better data, I am going to be just Cautiosly Optimistic about this

For the short term, nothing really worth talking about until friday, maybe a windy south bump but nothing significant

well, i dont get it but...

2005-09-15T17:04:00.000-07:00

date time sig ht| swl ht|T| D

09	15	6:00 pm	4.6	4.6	8.3	S	1.3	3.3	SSE	AVERAGE	6.4
09	15	5:00 pm	4.6	4.3	7.7	S	1.3	3.8	SSE	AVERAGE	6.2
09	15	4:00 pm	4.3	4.3	7.7	S	1.3	4.0	SE	AVERAGE	6.1
09	15	3:00 pm	4.6	4.3	7.7	S	1.3	4.0	SSE	AVERAGE	6.2
09	15	2:00 pm	4.3	4.3	8.3	S	1.3	3.0	SSE	AVERAGE	6.1
09	15	1:00 pm	4.6	4.3	7.7	S	1.6	4.0	SE	AVERAGE	6.1
09	15	12:00 pm	3.9	3.6	8.3	S	1.3	3.7	SE	AVERAGE	5.9
09	15	11:00 am	3.6	3.6	7.7	S	1.3	3.3	SE	AVERAGE	5.8
09	15	10:00 am	3.9	3.6	6.7	SSE	1.3	4.2	SSE	STEEP	5.8

this is why it is hard to forecast waves for NJ
at 10:00 am we have 3.6 foot swells and barely a wave hitting the beach
at 6:00 pm we have 4.6 foot swells, same direction, and its overhead

go figure

anyway, the swell has finally arrived. I am going to go out on a limb right now and say that it will last into tomorrow morning at least!

Seriously, The swell should stick around at least until Ophelia passes us. If she passes us that is, Instead of following the paths of pretty much any forecast that I have seen, Ophelia seems to be meandering around maybe taking after her namesake and losing her mind slowly while spinning around south of hatteras.

All bets are off on wind forecasts for the next few days, other than they most likely will not be going offshore significantly until at least saturday.

While Ophelia is spinning around where she is, she is in our swell window, if she starts moving west again, then she may become blocked by hatteras once again.

Enough discussion: What you need to know

Fri: Look for the lightest winds in the morning and the swell to be solid. It was overhead on the set just before dark, and i wouldn't expect much decrease in size overnight, in fact it will probably build.

Sat: if you believe the National weather service, the wind will be west. If ophelia has passed us by then we will see west winds, if ophelia is still spinning around off hatteras we will still be seeing light onshore flow. waves could be from 4-8 feet

Sun: again all bets off could be dead flat, could be overhead. my thinking right now just from Ophelia's history is the storm will probably be off the coast on sunday so look for offshore winds later in the day with a fading but still stong swell

______________________edit______________________________

all those wins in the black circle are are pointed at us. the reds are pretty strong

Good news and bad news

2005-09-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

Well Ophelia has remained a tricky storm to forecast, she stayed just far enough west for most of her swell to miss us, although yesterday some waist high waves were surfed.

The good news, is that as of 6:48 am today, and probably a little before that. Ophelia has some winds pointed at us and not blocked by hatteras. The Fetch is just going to increase as she moved further east.

The bad news, we will probably not see offshore winds until the storm passes.

Some light at the end of that bad news tunnel.. We wont get into really hard onshore winds until the storm gets very close, and there is a small chance that thursday morning, we will see some light offshores.

Size for thursday morning is a little tricky. The wave models i usually look at are performing pretty poorly, so i am not really sure what exactly to expect.

My thinking is that we will not see the 9 foot open ocean swells that the model is predicting to hit south jersey. I would think that a 4 foot ocean swell is more likely. Keep in mind though that a 4 foot ocean swell is capable of producing some pretty heavy surf at some NJ locations that amplify swells.

as for arrival times, Think overnight. You should be waking up tomorrow morning to a pretty healthy swell. Since we are this late in the year, and temperatures are getting pretty chilly at night, we might be lucky enough to get a land breeze tonight. That like a sea breeze only the opposite direction.

Long range: Look for the swell to increase in size through friday with winds backing around the compass from SE to E finally to NE

For the weekend, look for North winds and a residual easterly swell. Ophelia will likely be pulling away by then, but she may still send some swell back our way.

Ophelia: part 57

2005-09-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

Looks like Ophelia has weakened a bit, she may be down, but she isn't out.

Off of hatteras the bouys are reading around 10 feet, that energy should start making its way up here by tomorrow afternoon hopefully. This swell is extremely south, so it is going to have a little bit of trouble making it to some of out more easterly or NErly facing beaches. The ones that do get it, the swell might be pretty gutless.

My thinking on size... Probably in the waist to chest range, nothing spectactacular, but maybe some good waves coming in.

As the week progresses, the size will almost certainly increase, though conditions will deteriorate with the wind picking up from the SE.

More updates as info becomes available

Ophelia: redux

2005-09-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal. Ophelia is spinning around just south of hatteras. We are not getting swell from her right now for 2 readons.

1 hatteras (those bastards) is blocking some of the swell

2) (the real reason) almost none of the winds in this storm are blowing in our direction. This is unfortunate because we are going to be switching into a offshore wind direction by tomorrow.

The forecast.

The winds will start to point in our direction, and the storm will start to move north.
This means good quality south swell for NJ. Combined with west winds i would guess that monday is likely to see rising surf, up to chest high, and tuesday sees probably the best conditions of the week with head high waves, and some of the best spots are going to see overhead sets.

So monday and tuesday should be good, and depending on what the storm does, the winds might stay offshore longer into wed, thurs.

Note!!!!!
Opelia is a tropical storm in an area that has very few winds pushing her around. This means it is Very hard to predict the forecast track. I think the forecast i am giving you is the best forecast we have at this time, but it is possible that ophelia could make landfall in south or north carolina, changing the forecast and our potential for waves for the worse.

Mon, Tues Wed

2005-09-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

Real quick here, but if you need to pick a day to take off work, i would go with Tuesday or wed. looks like we are going to see a real nice setup of offshores, and decent size waves, poss. head high +.

This weekend: Look for good size waves to persist, but the winds might get kind of kind of funky, mornings should be best. Monday we see a wind shift to offshore with swell left over, tueday we see the waves really start to pick up. Its going to be a hard S. swell so look for south facing beaches to get it best.

more on sunday, I promise this time