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

Internet Issues resolved! and... cross your fingers

2005-09-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

I hope..

sorry about the lack of posts lately, I've been wanting to throw my computer out the window.

Wednesday is looking like it could be a really sweet setup right now.

Maria is spinning around out in the atlantic, pretty far out, but she is not really much of a hurricane anymore. Contary to what you might think, this is a good thing! as she makes the transition to an extra-tropical cyclone, he wind field will expand, giving her a huge fetch pointed pretty much straight at us, and Long Island too. While we will be seeing NE winds building the swell in the near term, on wednesday those winds should drop off, (if not switch offshore in the AM) leaving us with clean conditions. We will be seeing a mix of shorter period NE wind swell, and easterly ground swell. The easterly component may tend to close out some of the beach breaks, but i can think of a few jetties that are going to be absolutely on fire. The best part, THE KIDS ARE BACK IN SCHOOL!!! even this afternoon the beaches around here were desolate, and i havent heard a car drive by my house in 3 or 4 minutes, a sure sign that fall is upon us.

So check it out on wed. I'll try to come back with some more info tomorrow

Tim

happy labor day

2005-09-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

short term: Look for heavy NE winds for the next few days bringing us an increase in size. The waves are going to be big, but mostly unrideable

longer term: The wind willl switch sometime later this week, Thurs. or friday, when it does there should be some leftovers.

I'll update on wed.

Back!

2005-08-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry abut the lack of updates, I unexpectedly had no internet for a few days, but things are better now.

Today: Look for conditions to stay about the same as they are now, a sea breeze could kick up locally, so I would get out as early as you can.

Tues.-Wed: Stays in the waist to a little bigger range. Tuesday has the chance of some clean conditions especially early. Wed. the wind will pick up heavy from the south and the surf will pick up too. Look for waves building into the head high range with messy conditions.

Thurs: Morning should bring an offshore wind with a pretty sizeable chest - head swell left in the water.

Fri: fading swell with clean conditoions possibly some knee high leftovers

weekend/tropics: not much happening

hey katrina

2005-08-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

The NHC has just classified tropical depression 12. This storm will likely be Katrina by tomorrow morning. The forecast calls for the storm to move over florida and emerge into the gulf of mexico, but i have a sneaking suspicion that this storm may stall out in the vicinity of florida and would likely reverse itself and come up the east coast. This would be very ood for waves, so stay tuned, all your huricane orecasting needs are here.

This week: Nothing. The windswell that has been talked about by many, just isn't going to build big enough here to be significant. combined with N winds, we will have a few days of "get wet if you really need to" surf, but nothing worth ditching work for.

Great weekend, good week???

2005-08-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Well folks, I have heard a bunch of complainin' about how this weekend sucked and such, but I have to say, i got some sweet bodysurfing in on Fri/Sat and Sunday had some clean "Legit shoulder high" waves, as my neighbor put it. The incoming tide Sunday afternoon saw some powerful barrels for stomach high, and some pretty fun sets.

anyway, on to the future. What was around yesterday is still hanging around in the water today, The south winds we are seeing right now aren't the best, but havent chopped things up too much so far. If they go lighter or switch back to west this evening, you can bet there will be some fun peaks on the incoming tide again.

For the long term.
Once again we are completely up in the air with a storm that looks to be swinging in around midweek. My hunch is that we wont see much in the way of swell from this one, its still way to early in the year for nor'easters. I am going to keep checking on this, and if i see a few more model runs point to the same storm moving off the coast, i will let you know

Tim

I'm flakey, I know

2005-08-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of real forecasting for this swell, i wasn't even really sure there was going to be anything tomorrow morning till i just went down to the beach at 11:45 the moon was up and the waves looked about waist high with some chest sets. So look for that tomorrow morning with offshores the tide is at 9:30 so get up early to catch the best waves.

more of the same for tuesday with a bit of longer period swell thrown in for good measure.

As for later in the week models are showing some swell for mid to late week. keep tuned for more on that

Surf forecasters suck

2005-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend, once looking full of promise, sucks to forecast. The swell that looked even last night, like it would build, hasn't really shown up. Doesn't look hopeful for the rest of the weekend either. Saturday will likely be windy and small, with early sunday being slightly larger, but stull windy. Look for the winds to switch in the afternoon on sunday, but its anyones guess if the waves will still be sticking around. There is a decent chance that S winds ahead of the front could kick up some south swell. Hate to keep pushing you back, but check back Tomorrow for an update.

Where all the good waves at???

2005-08-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

well despite some fun waves yesterday, the wind has pretty much come up and kept any swell in the water from being too rideable. Fortunately there is some hope for this weekend. SE background swell and building surf from the onshore winds we will be seeing the next few days will keep the surf fun, though messy for the next few days. This will all change on saturday evening/sunday when a cold front comes through shifting the winds around to the west. Hopefully the winds will shift early morning sunday as opposed to late afternoon saturday, giving us the best size and clean conditions on sunday morning.

recap:

Fri:
building sloppy surf, waist high range most likely

Sat:
Still Building still choppy, possible PM cleanup

Sun:
Look for offshore winds and clean conditions. surf somewhere between stomach to head high
(sorry about the large range, i'll try to nail i down better tomorrow)

Tim

Hello From RI

2005-08-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

scored some great surf today up here in RI, had a real fun session with sets about 8 or 9 feet at Ruggles, then later in the afternoon checked out a less well known spot, a nice left point, that was firing at about 6-7 feet. I didn't surf there because it was getting dark, but watched for a good half hour and saw some guys tearing it up.

Surfing at Ruggles is an amazing trip, you are surfing in front of these amazing old mansions and there are a million tourists taking pictures of you on every wave. The vibe is pretty cold, it seems like the locals get a little posessive when the lineup is packed with a bunch of abrasive out of towners. All it takes is giving a little respect, and plenty of waves are yours for the taking. One of my new favorite waves.

and the forecast...

as you probably guessed, this swell is going to begin a slow fade into the middle of the week. Winds won't be ideal, but waves will be in the water so any wind switches to offshore should be closely monitored.

as this swell fades into thursday, we may see a newer windswell picking up. This one will be generated by non tropical forces, and is far into the future so it is far from certain. More as it unfolds

Recap:

tues-thurs:
tuesday starts out somewhere in the chest to head high range and begins a slow fade into thursday

thurs-???:
A possible new wind swell could hit on thursday, This one has some potential for good size so check back in the next few days and i will keep you up to date

Tim

Hate to bring the bad news

2005-08-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, it looks like we aren't going to be seeing much in the way of huge surf in the near future. The swell we have now wont likely fade into oblivion until Wed. at the earliest, but i would not expect to see too many overhead waves coming through in the next few days. Some of the really good spots that do a good job of concentrating longer period swell into big surf may stand a chance of seeing the occasional overhead set. The average beach break in Jersey is more likely to be seeing sets maxing out around head high. There is also likely to be a NE wind kicking in on monday, so look for out of control, possibly larger than forecast conditions. In short, i wouldn't plan on blowing off work for this swell. This season is likely to produce many more storms coming up the coast, so just be a bit patient and you should get another shot pretty soon

sorry this is short, i am in Rhode island, and dont have much time to write, The forecast was done quickly so dont yell too much if the waves are slightly bigger than i forecast

tim

Heads!!

2005-08-11T23:03:00.000-07:00

Looks like the swell filled in a little bit on the early side today. The period at the bouy off long island jumped up to 12 seconds around 11 o'clock. Unfortunately for me, I had a meeting up north today and missed out.

The good news though, is this swell isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Defintely its going to stick around through the weekend, and if the winds stay light like thay have been recently, we are going to be set up for an ultra-fun weekend. Looking at the swell models, I suspect we wont see too much of a size increase until sometime on saturday, most likely around dark. Sunday has potential to be a great day, but you are probably going to need to find a spot somewhat sheltered from Southerly/SWerly winds. I can think of at one place i would really like to be on sunday.

I dont want to speculate too much as to what is going to happen on Tues/Wed, as predicting a hurricane 5 days into the future is about as accurate as a boardwalk psychic. I am relatively sure that there will still be waves in the water. You might hear some forecasters blowing this up, claiming "its going to be epic" or some such excitement. I would take this with a grain of salt, and keep in mind that this storm has proven to be hard to forecast already, and the models have done a terrible job of it. That said, it may actually be an "epic" swell, though I would worry a little bit about the winds being completely out of the wrong direction.

anyway, to recap
Summary:

Friday: Go in the morning, the wind is going to kick up by the afternoon. the waves should be similar in size to the waves today, that ranged from waist to about shoulder across the state.

Saturday: Again, winds will be a factor, go early the tide will be low, and the winds have the best chance of being light

Sunday: Look for an increase in size, I wouldn't rule out head high sets. winds will be a factor, find a break that can take a SW wind

Monday: Same as sunday

Tues/Wed: Waves... but how big, what the winds will be doing and whether we are dealing with a full blown hurricane at our door are all up in the air. Dont believe any hype till at least saturday. The hype might be right, but if it is, it was a lucky shot. When i have any real confidence i will update

Tim

Good News!

2005-08-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

Well its finally happened, TD Irene is officially entering our swell window, and she is just starting to increase in strength. I looked at the most recent satellite wind measurement, and it looks like there may be some 50kt winds near the center of the storm. The better news is that swell is on the way. Its already in the water and heading our direction. It should start to show itself on thursday night or friday morning. The swell should pretty much build from there. I would expect the surf to start out in the waist high range and build to chest by the weekend. but that is al contingent on the track and strength of Irene, a storm who has proven difficult to forecast.

The monkey wrench in this whole business though is that we are going to be seeing another swell mixing in with Irenes. we should see some south swell starting out tomorrow. this might be the dominant swell for the beginning part of Irene's waves. Look for this swell to be in the waist to chest range possibly. Its going to be one of those hard south swells that has the potential to totally miss us, but i think this one should make it in.

summary

Wed: More of the same, thigh to waist high background swell

Thursday: increasing southerly swell, light winds should make for some fun surf

Friday: more light winds with 2 swell trains making appearances irenes SE swell and the more local south swell should make for fun conditions

Weekend: Look for saturday to be the best day probably with lighter winds and some decent size swell waist to chest range. sunday the size should increase somewhat, but strong S/SW winds might chop things up a bit.

Long range: Irene Dominates the forecast. Look for some serious surf in the 5-7 day range if irene tracks towards us

some fun surf out ther

2005-08-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

Just came in from an afternoon longboard session, and there are some fun waves coming through. I caught one or 2 waist high sets in the hour I was out there, so they are coming through, just not very often. expect more of the same tomorrow and then an increase on wed. I'll post more about wed. tomorrow. as of right now i am not sure if we will see much, but tomorrow i will have a handle on things, sorry but i dont want to speculate on things 2 days away that are really prety ambiguous.

tim

Tropics

2005-08-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Looks like the tropics arent living up to their wave generating potential just yet. Tropical Storm Irene is spinning around, but at this time she looks like she will recurve too far off the coast to bring us any real swell. aside from a few potential south swells we may get in the next week, dont expect to see too much in the way of waves.

Tim

er um...

2005-08-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

Well it seems that while i was in hatteras Gert slipped under my radar, so it seems we have Harvey out there now.

Speaking of which...

Looks like harvey is not going to be producing the fetch in our direction i had anticipated. At least not yet. we may get some background swell through the next few days from it, but i would guess nothing bigger than we saw today, and probably not even that big.

The good news is that there is a pretty large tropical wave off the coast of africa, the NHC thinks this may develop, and i will believe them for now. Any swell from this is a long way away, but keep checking back for more developments

Summary

Tomorrow: Probably in the waist high range, the winds should be favorable in the morning.

Friday: Not looking too terrible, possibly up to waist high, and clean conditions early, with a usual summer shift out of the south later in the afternoon possible

Weekend, more of the same, smallish, but with more variable winds

Hot tropical action!

2005-08-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

Looks like we may be in for some more tropical swell hitting tomorrow afternoon or thursday AM. Tropical depression 8 soon to be known as Tropical stor Gert gained depression status sometime this afternoon as it began to develop a visible center of circulation. Satellite wind measurements have measured some 35-40 kt winds in the vicinity, so my guess is, T.D. 8 will become gert sometime tonight or tomorrow.

What this means for waves???

its not quite clear yet. The bulk of the strong winds in the system are aimed a little south of us, but as the storm evolves that should change a little. We should start to see the winds pointed more directly at us as soon as tropical storm force is reached. Unfortunately soon after that happens, the storm is going to start moving away from us which greatly reduces its wave making potential. I expect to see some long period swell out of this tomorrow afternoon or thursday morning, but to see the benefits of the swell we are going to need to have some favorable winds. The best chance for that will be on Thursday morning for a DP session.

For the Long term:

Looks like we could have some storms forming off the coast of africa soon, that could put us in some quality waves in about two weeks time. But thats all just speculation now, more on that as storms develop

Recap:

Look for a long period swell somewhere in the waist high range hitting wednesday or thursday AM, with the most favorable winds on Thursday morning. Tides are somewhat high in the morning so you might need to find someplace that can take a little bit of depth.

Aside from that, not much going on in the next week or so unless we get some more tropical development

PFS

Tim

Back

2005-08-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

Some fun surf today

It always amazes me how right in front of my house the waves can be so small, when 1 mile away they can be so much bigger. i have tried to figure it out, but i cant really grasp the reasons.

anyway... for tomorrow, you will be surfing about the same size waves you were surfing today. I saw some good chest high sets come through where i was out, but every where else i looked looked like it was struggling to hit waist high.

for the long range this swell could make it to wednesday morning before dying too much, but i wouldn't count on shortboarding after that at least until the weekend when we may see another round of swell come through.

more tomorrow

Tim

I love Franklin

2005-07-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

So i'm down here in hatteras getting the full brunt of franklin's swell. Its really been great head high waves with a few overhead sets coming through. I am on dialup internet here so i cant give you a proper forecast, but franklin should begin to head up the coast after looping around down here, so expect waves in the next few days.

Have fun

Tim

I'm away

2005-07-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

I will be away for the next week. check the weather channel or www.nhc.noaa.gov for information on TS franklin. You should be able to figure out what the waves will be like from my post below and the information you can obtain from either of those sources.

Hopefully hatteras will be getting it good from franklin.

Have a good week!

Tim

Hurricane? Franklin

2005-07-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

Looks like franklin is starting to gain some strength. Recent observations have indicated that Franklin may have attained hurricane status. There are three different scenarios for what franklin will do.

1)
The first scenario is the one that the swell models I use are assuming. That is that the storm is going to be torn apart by a cold front approaching it as we speak. This scenario will result in the storm dying and having a minimal impact on the surf in NJ.

2)
The second scenario, which i think is the more likely one, is that the storm will not be destroyed by the cold front. The front may push the storm to the NE at an accelerated pace, which would produce some surf, but nothing specatuclar this storm is not yet large enough, or strong enough.
3)
There is one more possibility that is probably the best for surf on the east coast in general. The storm could be completely missed by the front moving through, and start meandering aroung in the atlantic coastal areas. Depending on its track it could give NJ some truly quality swell like we saw from Hurricane Danny in 2002. If you don't remember the storm you probably remember the 2 weeks of solid chest to head high swell we saw in early september of that year. We wont be likely to see a swell stick around that long, but a few days of chest to head high surf would not be out of the question towards the end of next week if this scenario is the one that actually happens.

Franklin

2005-07-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

Looks like tropical storm franklin is going to be dominating the wave making in the next week. As the storm moves up the coast and intensifies, we should see some moderate background swell coming up. Look for it to hit sometime around sunday.

Sorry this is so quick, I am getting ready to go to Hatteras for the next week so there will be few if any updates next week.

Forecasts for the hurricane are pretty sketchy right now, so i am not going to be able to give a decent forecast right now.

Look for more tomorrow

GO NOW!

2005-07-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

looks like the swell I've been talking about has finally arrived. I was surfing chest high sets this morning. Its always great when a swell exceeds all your expectations.

My thinking is this swell should hold some size through the day, and linger into tomorrow morning. During the day tomorrow we are likely to see some fading, but hopefully rideable waves.

Get on it

Fun Longboard session this AM

2005-07-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

sorry, meant to post this this morning, but i never hit the send button

PM update:
saw some waist-stomach high waves on my pre sunset surf today, definitely enough push for a shortboard. Looks like the same for the morning, get one it!

Looks like the thigh high waved i was talking about yesterday arrived. There were even some waist high sets coming through. Pretty fun.

Looks like we will see more of these smallish waves through till wednesday, then maybe decreasing in size a bit to the weekend. Not much to look forward to, but you can definitely get wet if you want

Tropics:

Nothing to report

Quick Update

2005-07-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

Looks like some tiny swell has started to arrive. I was thinking about taking a longboard down to the beach and trying to catch some small little waves, but the weather is crappy and the tide is a bit too deep.

Look for some thigh high waves tomorrow with South or SE winds. The morning might be your best bet if you can find a place that will handle tiny waves and a high tide, as the winds might kick in a little stronger in the afternoon.

As for the Tropics,

Nothing much to report at the moment, Our tropical wave is rapidly being sheared in to two systems, neither of which are likely to develop, and nothing coming off the coast of africa looks promising.

Still Small

2005-07-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Looks like there is a tiny bump out there today. My neighbor was getting some rides, (he's 8) but i dont think there was enough to push anyone bigger. the East winds are chopping things up a bit also.

Short Term:

The waves that i said probably wouldn't hit us this weekend, arent going to. There is still a small chance that we will see a waist high wave tomorrow, better chances south of the Barneget inlet, but still meager. Monday and tuesday that chance is a little better, but SW winds seldom make swell for us in NJ. The good news is those SW winds will interact with a long period background swell sometime around Wednesday and hopefully give us some good, but small waves for the mid to end of the week.

Tropical:

Emily is out of our swell window unfortunately

There is a tropical wave around 50w 25n that some models are forecasting to intensify into a tropical depression or storm. This feature is the cause of the long period background swell I mentioned in the previous section. The system is fairly larger with a few hundred miles of 25-35 kt winds aimed in our direction. this is likely already making some waves that will reach NJ by midweek.

If this system develops further, I'll let you know.

T

Still no waves

2005-07-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Pretty much unsurfable down here in Seaside Park this AM. A few longboardable dribblers may be coming through, but they looked pretty unappetizing.

SHORT TERM:

The forecast is looking pretty bleak. We have a cold front that should sweep across the region sometime this weekend, likely on sunday. This will bring moderately strong SW winds that will kick up a swell with an almost true south direction. These swells often miss NJ completely even when swell models indicate that they will provide some waves. I think this is one of those cases. Look for waist high waves AT BEST for the weekend. If something changes, i will update the forecast.

TROPICS:

Hurricane Emily is officially out of our swell window. She is extremely unlikely to produce any waves for us. My attention is now focused on two features.

1) A tropical wave off the coast of Africa. This has some potential to develop and if it did would be likely to bring us some waves.

2) There is a large area of clouds off of Cape Hatteras. Some models allow this system to intensify slightly, which could bring us some longer period groundswell which would arrive in the next few days. Nothing large, but some fun small scale summer surf.

More on the tropics tomorrow

The surf didn't come

2005-07-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

Despite building wave conditions and NE winds yesterday, the small swell expected to arrive this morning kind of left us hanging. There is a little bump in the water, but its not really surfable.

As for the forecast:
I hesitate to say again that the waves will be picking up tomorrow, because it looks like the same swell I thought would arrive today is still trying to get in. That said, I think we will see rideable waves tomorrow with unfavorable winds. If you can try to hit it early that would be your best shot for light winds.

For the weekend:
We will have a cold front passing some time on saturday or sunday which will kick up winds and waves out of the south. This will be like all the other south swells we have had recently, in that there is a good chance it will miss New Jersey entirely. Long Beach Island is more likely to get waves from a south swell then points north of the Barnegat Inlet.

Tropics:
Emily is on a westward track at the moment and doesn't look to be turning to much to the north any time. She is actually looking to miss the US entirely. This means unless something drastic changes, no waves from Emily. Fortunately, the tropics are still active and we have a few features moving off the coast of africa. I will be watching them closely.

Tim

Bump Tomorrow

2005-07-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

Look for a bump in size tomorrow as we will see a small windswell out of the NE. The waves should be in the knee to thigh high range maybe some stomach high standouts. This should stick around until Thursday AM. in the longer range look for a slight bump in size friday into saturday as we will see a frontal passage driving some southerly windswell.

The tropics are really starting to cook. We have had 5 named tropical systems so far. Emily took her name yesterday, and is expected to strengthen to hurricane strength within 36 hours. She is still a week or so away from bringing us any swell if any at all, the current guidance from the national hurricane center suggests that she may head in to the gulf and is likely to not produce much in the way of swell for us. As you know, these tropical storms are hard to forecast, so stay tuned.

BT

2005-07-12T07:40:00.000-07:00