Apart from special waves such as tsunamis, the only thing that produces the waves we see on our coasts is the action of the wind blowing over the sea surface.  Waves arriving on a coast can be generated by local wind, in ‘real time’, in which case the waves are called ...

When a swell is first generated in the storm centre, a whole host of different wave heights, periods and directions are produced at the same time, by the wind which is constantly imparting its energy onto the sea surface.  As long as the wind continues to blow over that stretch of the ocean, ...

Once a swell starts getting near a coastline, its behaviour begins to change as it starts to propagate over shallower water.  Out in the open ocean, the water was deep enough compared with the height of the waves for the presence of the sea bed not to have any effect; but once the water becom...

Imagine the following situation: You look at the predictions, and you find that 6-foot, 15-second swell is forecast to be arriving from the northwest sometime tomorrow.  From experience, you know that is the perfect size, period and direction for your beach.  The next day, you ‘tra...

The waves we ride have a few interesting and unique properties.  Below, I’m going to explain just a few of them.  But first, let me briefly clarify some of the simple terminology associated with a wave: If you keep seeing words like amplitude, height, period, wavelength, frequency ...

Forecasting the weather is always difficult and with any method it's worth bearing in mind the enormous complexity of predicting globally what will happen for the week ahead. We want to make sure we're as clear as possible with everyone using magicseaweed about what you can expect from our ...

Every six hours we gather all the available forecast, wave buoy and weather station information for the next eight days. This includes the NWW3 wave forecast model and the GFS weather forecast model. These models are produced by the NOAA and are used for their national and international weather fore...