In the last article in our series about surfing and the weather we look at the location of your local coastline in relation to the position of active low pressure systems. We relate this to the direction and movement of the ‘low’, and how this affects waves in the ocean, and ultimately, swell at your fave spot.

Swell window

The swell window is the area of cosatline that is exposed to groundswell. The majority of swell in the North Atlantic travels from the North and East to the West and South. This means that the most consistent places in Europe exposed to the swell are Northern Spain and Western Ireland, as well as the West coasts of Portugal and Morocco. The Azores and the Canary Islands also get a fair amount of swell. The North coast of Cornwall and Devon have much smaller swell windows from this direction of swell, because Ireland’s land mass blocks most North West and Northerly groundswells.

Another factor that will determine your swell is your surf spot’s location in relation to the low, and the usual path of the low. For instance Western Ireland in the winter can get consistent large surf, but it is often blown out due the fact that the low is too near the coast; creating strong winds. Also there can be many lows, one after the other, and each one ‘blows out’ the other’s swell.
On the other hand, Morocco and the Canary Islands get lots of good winter groundswell with calm, warm weather conditions. This is because the lows pass far enough away not to affect the warm high pressure weather at the coast.

Beach orientation

The orientation of individual beaches is equally important in determining how big the swell will be when it arrives. For example, the North coast of Cornwall picks up most of its swell from a Westerly direction, so those beaches facing West get the full impact of the swell. Those facing North will get less of the impact of the swell, and have smaller waves as a result, as the swell has to wrap around a headland to reach the shore.

Conversely many of Cornwall’s South East coast beaches don’t receive much or any of the Westerly swells, and as a result are less consistent for surfing. They tend to have a lot of ‘flat’ days. This coast relies on the rarer South and South Westerly swells or really large Westerly swells we sometimes get in the winter. These can then wrap around the coast and hit the shore with some good surf.

To check your surf conditions  we recommend you use windguru, and the BBC weather site to track pressure systems.

So next time you look at your weather chart and see a low pressure system coming in, it could be generating some great waves for you! Happy surfing!