Posts tagged Cornwall

Today’s blog will consider local weather conditions and their affect on groundswell at your local beach.

As groundswell approaches your local beach the quality of the surf will be will largely be dependant on local weather conditions including wind direction and strength.

Lets use the Newquay area of the North coast of Cornwall as an example.
Imagine we have a lovely 3-4 ft 15 second groundswell coming from the West, this sounds promising, but it will depend entirely on the wind direction and strength, and how exposed your beach is.

The perfect wind direction and strength for most surfers in Newquay would be a light South Easterly (offshore) wind; blowing from the land directly out to sea. In these conditions the swell will appear as clearly defined lines on the ocean, if you look from a good vantage point out to sea. The sea between each wave will be smooth.

As the waves approach the shore they become steeper, being pushed up by the shallower seabed, additionally the offshore wind will hold up the face of the wave, creating a steep smooth face. As the wave breaks some fine spray will be blown off the lip of the wave, and the stronger the offshore wind, the more spray will be blown back over the wave from the lip. Also the waves will break a bit closer to the shore due to the wind holding them up.

In a very strong offshore of say, force 5 or more, it often becomes difficult to catch the waves. This can be due to the wind blowing up the face and holding you back, stopping you from being able to take off in to the wave. The spray coming from the lip of the wave can also hold you back, both physically and mentally!

If you are on a long board in a strong offshore it can be even harder to catch the wave due to wind blowing up under the nose of your board, you often have to get a bit further forward on your board when paddling into the wave, you also have the added safety problem of a bigger board being blown through the air by the strong wind.

Strong cross-shore winds can be a problem too. If the wind gets quite strong and blows across the beach parallel to the sea, and the beach is fairly exposed, such as Watergate Bay, where there are no headlands, then large chop will develop coming across the face of the waves creating lumps and bumps in the waves. Waves can also possibly break into small sections; and this results in a difficult take-off, and a bumpy, difficult ride.

With moderate to strong onshore winds; those blowing from the sea towards the land, the waves tend to have quite a lot of chop or bumps in them, and the waves tend to break earlier; further out to sea. The faces of the waves can have a gentler slope to them, and this is especially true on a relatively flat beach with subtle sand banks. These conditions often results in a more difficult and longer paddle out, as you are paddling into the wind.
Windless or calm conditions are what surfers call ‘glassy’ conditions. In these conditions the surface of the ocean is a smooth as glass, with the groundswell passing through it. These conditions often occur in settled weather. In the summer in England surfers will refer to the ‘morning glass’ or the evening ‘glass-off’. These glassy conditions, along with light to moderate offshore winds are most surfers dream conditions, and can pave the way for an epic surf session!