Sligo surf this weekend (15th july)

-maccer-

Hey guys,

I am up in leitrim this weekend so was thinking of bringing my board along and taking a spin to strandhill or streedagh on saturday. Surf forecast doesn't look good but just wondering what people with local knowledge of the beaches think? Am I better off just leaving the boards at home?
Many thanks.

Kell

-maccer- wrote: »

Hey guys,

I am up in leitrim this weekend so was thinking of bringing my board along and taking a spin to strandhill or streedagh on saturday. Surf forecast doesn't look good but just wondering what people with local knowledge of the beaches think? Am I better off just leaving the boards at home?
Many thanks.

I dont usually post here, specifically because of posts like above.

What happened to reading the Atlantic forecasts from here - http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/surface_pressure.html

and working out where the swell is going to happen?

Also, there is a really nice wave model here- http://www.marine.ie/home/services/operational/oceanography/WaveForecast.htm

showing a forecast right from the Atlantic data buoys and its nearly 100% accurate. Unlike where you have pulled your forecast, it forecasts good swell all along the west coast from 3pm tomorrow.

OP- where did you pull your forecast from? NEVER EVER EVER look at Magicseaweed. Its usually wrong. surf-forecast.com is usually right, but also check your local buoy before you go out. Because our own Marine Institute site is lazy, you can pull on the hour detail here- http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/maps/United_Kingdom.shtml

You'll find lots of beach info about when they work right and reviews here- www.beachwizard.com so you can or cant decide to leave your board at home or not.

Or else, you could just show up at the beach, board in hand and either a) look like a twat, or b) be a surf god because your gut was right.

As for this-

runman wrote:

Hi, Anybody know if fanore works ok at high tide or just after? Im considering heading doen there in the morning arriving about 11am.. I was told only to go there when the tide is on the push. Any truth in that?

Have you any idea what difference tides make to waves? I doubt you do, so the relevance to your level of surfing is not worth considering. But-

Fanore is a lovely slow building wave on a hi tide. Take note- waves build slowly on a hi tide as there is a greater volume of water under the wave as it builds, and they tend to peel in a given direction. Waves start to jack and get steeper as the tide starts to go out as there is a sucking action under the wave as it gets closer to full low tide. As full low tide approaches, waves tend to dump uniformly and have a very short ride.

So, to answer your question, Fanore, like any beach break, builds slowly and uniformly on a push or full hi tide. Most beach breaks work best about an hour after hi tide as the suck of the tide gives the wave a bit of a steeper face without being too dumpy.

K-

-maccer-

I was working off of magic seaweed. Hadn't heard of the other sites you mentioned before but I will take note of them and use them in future.

In the end I just turned up at the beach and there was a nice bit of swell. Waves were quite messy but still surfable. Well worth my while going down there.

Zygnoth

My favourite site is windguru. Here's the site for Lahinch:

http://www.windguru.cz/int/index.php?sc=47735

What I love about the site is that is shows almost all the information I need to choose the perfect time to surf...almost. You'll still need to get tide times from a different website (or the Irish Times).

The site is even good for checking when it's going to rain!

Most important point is to know how wave period and wave height are interconnected. You'll have to judge it by eye and by surfing to get a feel for the numbers but a smaller wave height at a 15s interval is going to make for a much better session than a larger wave height at a 10s interval.

The interval is the time between the peaks/troughs of the waves, which is related to the amount of energy put into the waves by the storms. This relationship is not direct though so it requires an ever increasing amount of energy to raise the interval by a second.

In surf docs, you'll often hear a wave height followed by an interval for big wave riders. This is because a storm may through up a huge wave, but it needs a decent fetch to increase the intervals. When a large wave and a large period is mentioned, that's normally when the people in the documentaries start freaking out and slapping each other's backs.

You'll find that the intervals in the summer are usually quite low, which is why summer surfing is so difficult to predict in Ireland. Wait until the hurricane season starts and keep an eye on windguru again. If a hurricane/ex-hurricane sits off the coast of america for a few days and starts to come towards Ireland, it'll send an amazing long-interval swell.

Finally, windguru is only a prediction tool but can be good for stormy days when the wind will be shifting 180 degrees over the course of a few hours. In the past, I've managed to sneak in quick sessions in fairly decent surf in what would have been a write-off day.

All this is based on my understanding of what I've read in magazines and personal experience so, if anybody know more details, please feel free to correct.

cornbb

I like windguru a lot. It's with mentioning though that it's primarily for windsports, not surfing. So 3 stars means the surf will be blown out and crap, not fantastic. You need to ignore the stars and be able to learn what all the other data means.

Zygnoth

it's primarily for windsports, not surfing

Ah, I didn't know that - I was always wondering why the stars didn't make sense!

Also, I forgot to say to keep an eye on the units - knots is very different to km/hr.