Cross referencing the forecast

Bolinas MSW forecast for today (Friday 23) was 1-2ft surf, 1 ft swell at 14 seconds, and wind 3mph.
Actual: surf was correct. Wind more like 7-10mph, with 3-4ft wind waves (at least) that were breaking.

It was a choppy and wet ride. At one point while trolling 1.3 miles out, the Revo was pushed by a wind wave from the side and water was overflowing over the gunnel. Just briefly. I called it off, and rode back, wondering if I’m going to flip now that the waves are hitting me from behind. It was a hairy ride.

Turns out that  NOAA had a small craft advisory 10-60 NM out, and 5-6ft wind waves on coastal waters. I’ve been  ignoring NOAA since last year due to the coarse range (they give one forecast for the entire area from Point Reyes to Pigeon Point). Because of their predictions I missed lots of good fishing days. But I’m starting to rethink my approach.

I know some people average the forecasts, and some look at the bigger picture. I’d love to hear some specific advice on cross referencing the forecast.

Oh, and also, here are some salmon fishing photos from today. They were all taken in the early AM in Mill Valley. Good coffee I have to say

A good approach is ignore noaa and go out in whatever weather is there when you arrive

You’ll learn a lot faster and you won’t ever be bored

Gotta be young and in good shape and maybe a little crazy

Gotta be young and in good shape and maybe a little crazy

I am not that young, shape is ok, but I think I qualify for a little crazy

I look at NOAA/NWS first.  It's coarse, yes - that's a good word for it.  It gives an impression of what's happening over a large area, and just as waters and conditions up to 10 miles out can influence the nearshore, the waters 10 to 60 miles out indicate the trend and what could push in here and there to within the 10 mile zone.

I then look at Magic Seaweed, Stormsurf and Windy.com. 

Seaweed is a surfer forecast - it's often too limited in its scope and almost like a tidepooler's forecast, but that can be very useful.  I see it as basically indicating what the best case scenario is, but it's not always on that end of the spectrum.

Stormsurf is an amazing tool, and I think it's been the most consistent over the years.  I've seen many times that it calls for something and is in conflict with NWS, and then NWS ends up adjusting their call until it almost matches Stormsurf's by the time that day arrives.

Windy.com is also a great tool, but lately for the Cove it's been way off in terms of what's happening along shore - especially in the lee of the point.

Taking all of the forecasts in and then comparing to what you see in person is absolutely essential to becoming proficient with your own prognostication of the conditions.

If you take advice from BlueKayak you'd better be ready for challenge and adventure!  On September 10th and 11th, 2006, he and I caught 37 and 38 pound kings, respectively, and we have been brothers ever since.   

He's my older bro though  , and his stories of "getting wet" are some of the most understated and potentially perilous that I've seen on this site.

There is a forecast function within NOAA Weather.gov that's called MapClick. it forecasts for one mile square and is not the coarse forecasts mentioned so far. On the marine side it only works for Pt Arena south, it used to work north of Pt Arena but several yrs ago it quit working, they said they were going to fix it but they never did. I'll include a link so you can see how it works, the map is interactive, just pick your point and click. If it doesn't offer the one mile square it will default to the zone forecast. Once on point, the hourly graphs are most useful. Here's a link near Bolinas.  https://marine.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-122.66787&lat=37.88941#.YPxSc71KjIU

Yeah it was ugly out there. was very wet and pretty cold in the morning. That was an unforecasted S wind from what I check. happens sometimes, always sucks. morning S winds have about 60% chance of getting better and dying down and 40% chance of getting worse depending on where you are and what the forecast is. that is 100% my own opinion based on my own experiences on the water. yesterday the wind died and it was really nice until I left around 4.

maybe noaa had it right if they did maybe noaa is the secret south wind predicter, that would be nice. I dont even bother with noaa anymore bc they always overstate

msw is usually pretty good for bolinas. I have also had the same experience as Eric with windy this year, been really wrong multiple times to the point that I dont bother checking it anymore. for the record none of the windy forecasts had that S wind predicted, I checked otw lol.

you can look at forecasts all day but u never really know until you are out there

Thanks for the Stormsurf recommendation Eric.. checking it out now

MagicSeaWeed for Bolinas, I would say 9 out of 10 it is pretty right on for the surf and wind condition, with the 1 not too far behind.  But that's for near shore.  The offshore I usually checked NOAA and the map click, also complemented with Windy (but I check all the available forecast reports for wind and surf).

Stormsurf is an amazing tool

Whatever dont/or becareful installing app version. I downloaded on my Samsung note and it wanted to takeover my phone settings with its own software stuff!

I’d love to hear some specific advice on cross referencing the forecast.

When you get your AI, you'll find it gets even trickier. If you're kayaking and the wind is less than predicted, you're probably happy with that. On the other hand, if you're in a sailing kayak*, and the wind is less than predicted, or the direction is wrong, or it's gustier than predicted, or whatever, it can be a bigger deal.

Just to take 2 recent examples from Santa Cruz...

Last Wednesday was a small craft advisory day with the consensus being that the strong winds would start ramping up between 9:00 and 10:00am. When I left at noon, it was still calm, so sailing was pretty much non-existent.

Then last Friday, the predictions agreed there would be little or no wind all morning. It turned out there was plenty of breeze for sail-trolling, although it was inconsistent/gusty which made it necessary to constantly adjust the sail, which was as tiring as putting away the sail and just pedaling.