The secret of quality swells

The secrets of quality swells

How many times, since the Internet is in our lives, you´ve seen yourself in this situation:

swell alert, the charts show some 5-7 foot ground swell with a period of 16 sec. You have enough surfing time to know the difference of a 5-7 foot wind swell with 8sec and 5-7 swell with 16 secs . You know this means, depending on the spot, more quality waves, better formed lines, nice walls, because the bigger the period the better. But when you reached the spot, instead of that classic day you were expecting you get some messy, sectioned, ripped out surf. Why is that?

The reason is that the charts, as wonderful as they are, have lots of limitations in terms of the information they provide, this means that what you read in the charts is not the complete story.

The energy, in form of waves, move around in the ocean formed in a vary kind of ways, with different heights, periods and directions. Even the cleanest ground swell, when you surf it, is a mix of swells that superposed each other creating a resultant swell. So it is not the same a resultant swell that most of the waves are within a range of 14 to 15 seconds than a resultant swell where the waves vary from 10 to 15 secs. Some other times, like in the case of El Salvador, when the swells come from different directions and meet there´s a resultant swell as well. The north swells season is from October to april and the south swell season is from late February to November, so there is a couple of months, February and march, when the energy from north meets energy from south creating a resultant swell that usually is less good than expected.

So now next time you see on your favorite forecast website a swell alarm, read the information provided carefully in order to have the whole Idea of what this swell is going to do.

I hope this article helps you to understand our beloved ocean even more.

Surfpicsbyluis

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