Saturday am and back to clam with offshore flow.
Saturday Last Day of 2016 7am WFL Surf Forecast: Winds will quickly clock around to SSE at 15 for Sunday. That will make for a small south line. It does not look too rideable. That south flow will continue into Monday am. I would say if your really horny for another wave(aren’t we all?) check the cams Sunday later in the afternoon and check if buoy 42098 could get 3ft from the south (or more) than maybe best south facing beaches would have small log wave later Sunday or early Monday. Low pressure will form in the gulf and exit LA later this week. Next weekend there could be a very small ground swell from this low, right now knee high range but check back we will keep an eye on it. Enjoy your Saturday tons of pics and comments to check out, how was it? Prolong the stoke by telling us about it. It looked fun! Thanks for making aurasurf.com a success and special thanks to the Compound for keeping it going in 2017!
3pm Friday: N Jetty a couple thumping sets on the cam and clean. Looks fun, still some swell.
3pm Friday Update: Looks really fun, some thumping swell on the N Jetty cam got me fired up. Buoy is 5ft @8 seconds NW, wind is offshore. If you hesitate don’t, go surf. Thanks everybody who made donations. GC is so cool.
Coleman Key is fun today. Thanks Russ-D for the shot of TC in da barrel.
Friday DP: Knee to thigh occ plus, super clean at south, a couple guys out enjoying an epic GC sunrise.
Photos from Friday: surfers: John Purdy & Andy Malloy, photos: BHamilton
Coco Frio Anyone?
Guide Services, photography and video. info@aurasurf.com
About the forecaster: My name is Micah Weaver. I’m from St Petersburg, Florida. I started surfing and forecasting the WFL gulf coast in the mid 1980’s.I currently live in Rincon, Puert Rico. Thanks for visiting aurasurf.com
Its not bad news you reported on the forecast, rather a sign of the times. This Winter’s strong high pressure parked under the Aleutian islands in the Northern Pacific is whats fn up the storm track. Hawaii, Socal and even us here, well you know doo doo trickles down hill and to us at the bottom. Even tho the pineapple express is ripe, the real energy from the arctic lows is riding up and over the parked high pressure, then diving down and shooting right back to the North like a super ball… avoiding us here in Florida’s Westside. Hopefully this breaks down and allows delivery of a better Winter storm track. Thanks Micah for all your hard work.
I didnt look that far back to the Pacific, my focus has been closer in on the continent and especially the ATL, it did take forever for Pipe to run. ATL Outlook: October and November were dream like in the Caribbean but December has been a lot of wind swell and not the big solid swells we saw earlier. We are expecting a solid one from the current front, 5-6ft at 12 seconds for Monday but fading behind that with not much for the holidays. I’m expecting big high pressure in the ATL to start 2017 shutting down the ATL storm track and sending everything to Europe. Portugal, etc continues to be the winner in this forecast. Yin and Yang of post el ninyo… Personally maybe I will finally get caught up and I dont mind waist high waves and breezy WX in the Caribe.
Awesome TD thanks for dropping in and panning out to a wider view of what’s behind it all.
Ahhhh, nothing like being a Gulf Coast surfer. Frothing at every front that tries to track across the state, praying for thigh to waist high waves(and loving them when they do show up), driving all over the place trying to find the best wave, getting totally skunked by super low, winter, tides, etc., etc. π It is definitely a love, hate relationship that I hope to never grow tired of.
YAYYYYY, finally able to post again!!! π π π π It’s been a while.
sorry Russ thanks for dropping in. I’ve been playing with the themes of wordpress and I have no idea what Im doing so I apologize to anyone that has not been able to comment. WP for being so cool and simple, the back end is limited and frustrating.
<3 Aurasurf – greats posts – yoooooooooooo Russ!!!!
Ahhhhh, and all this time I was thinking Micah was just getting sick of seeing my comments. Haha! I’m glad that’s clarified. π
Legit bottom turn on a legit wave.
What a slow start this year. I got a new wetsuit to add to my collection, and a ton of surfboards. So let’s get the wavetrain going soon GoMex!!!!!!! π
As for consistency surf season is winter time for the Gulf and the same is true for all of Florida. If we all agree on that point it would be interesting to see someone knowledgeableβ s dissertation on climate change, long term weather patterns and how they influence the surf. I have surfed the WFL Gulf from the mid 70βs to early 80βs, move away then returned in 2000 and been here since, residing in Pinellas. I would say the last 16 years have seen a general decline in terms wave frequency and quality, notwithstanding the 2004-05 crazy run of quality tropical systems SW swells. True or just my imagination, i.e. βin the good olβ days weβ¦.β It seems the last few years most the fronts backdoor us as Micah explained. We used to get that SE, S then SW dig before the front and wind shift and that brought in those quality west swells of years past. So what has happened, something unexplainable, some kind of Trump weather phenomenon that throws out all the old rules? οο Inquiring minds want to know!
DW, one of the meteos in Ruskin told me there is proof that the weather belts, storm tracks have moved north, even avg tornado tracks, lightning, t-storms, etc. If that’s true than the WX is higher up now and missing the gulf of Mexico at 28-30 degrees North latitude. The winner in all this is Portugal. Let’s all move there, good wine, tons of giant surf and it’s cheap.
It will happen for the gulf, even this winter but any consistency seems to be gone and it did seem better back in the day. Still we were talking about when the gulf does get good and it’s really good. I can see that now more than ever.
Caught some glassy long board waves yesterday for a couple hours and a quick session before I’m on dad duty today. Like 1-2 foot glassy peelers on a shallow sandbar! No suit yesterday but def one this morning with the fog. Better than nothing for sure and just for reference I’m in the ti spb area. Def a loggable wave! Had fun ! Just wanted to let everyone know. The pass looked super fun too!
I saw that on the buoys but did not think to mention it thanks Ericito, glad you got some. anyone else out on a log?
DW, from my perspective and I was born here in TB and been surfing since 92 I’d say there’s a lot of factors that’s contributed to the decline in swell. The Sandbars are a big factor. Years ago many of the Sandbars were considered unstable and were rapidly shifting. Through the years the barrier islands have shaped themselves into more stable Sandbars where I think from looking at aerial maps from years ago, the deeper water channels and more jagged angled bars were more bountiful. Now the bars have leveled off affecting the way swell is magnified hitting the bars.
I remember in the 80s the coast in Pinellas wasn’t as sculpted in the central region where it bends north and south. There used to be breaks in through there and now everytime I’ve checked it, it never looks like it’s picking up the swell good even though the buoys are saying there is.
Sand movement and bathsymetry are at odds with incoming swell I believe.
I surfed those sand bars in central Pinellas as thru the 80’s and they were great. Not the same after all the dredging but people tell me the sand in certain areas down south is better than ever. Thanks for the comment JDH very accurate
GEEEEEZE…… there must hjave been some lil ting by me & I totally missed it – that is till I saw Ericito’s post on FB – then I came flying over here… I had the feeling…. I just didn’t listen.. also red tide is still luking around Siesta key – Wind change hopefully blew it out
MW, very cool new board! Bruce Ragen is one of the great EC shapers that worked for Quiet Flight founded by the Leisure brothers. I had a late 90’s Ragen shaped QF winged swallow tail and a late 70’s QF round tail twin fin shaped by Ed Leisure. Those guys are EC surf royalty!
PS, over the past week to preserve my sanity I have been lucky enough to catch a few quality days eastside N of the Cape and prior to that a couple sessions right here in TI with enough size to forego the usual LB and ride my flat wide quad. Hoping for a banger Gulf front for the new year!
Love that yellow. Can’t wait to see pics with you riding it in reeling rights. I like how you bought Local.
I miss surfing that stretch of coast and the scenery of looking inland and the sites. It sure has changed. Wish I could’ve surfed the pier when it was around.
One more point about the sand is from the two storms this summer with multiple days of south wind it pulled some sand further north and after that the flat spell tides have been grooming the sandbars. Once we get some solid swell finally sweep through I’m thinking the sandbars are ripe for lined up barrels. It all depends on that Jet Stream you mentioned staying north earlier. It’s really in an west to east pattern with no dig into the south. I’ve seen some flat spells but man this could be record setting non swell events in the fall moving into winter. What do you think? Remember any worse fall flat spell? I cant.
THAT BOARD !!!!!
always enjoy reading/learning observations of weather – sand ” bathsymetry ”
and this:
“one of the meteos in Ruskin told me there is proof that the weather belts, storm tracks have moved north, even avg tornado tracks, lightning, t-storms, etc. If thatβs true than the WX is higher up now and missing the gulf of Mexico at 28-30 degrees North latitude”
something to think about while wave waiting
Carlos Burle acceptance speech at Navare – was one of the best ever —
Was 2016 the worst winter for WFL surf ever? Sure feels like it.
Just booked tix for a fifth pr March trip! MW we are gonna have to meet up for a sesh this time for sure! In staying in Rincon 6-12 soooooo stoked !!!!! I still don’t think we have met in person lol so let’s hope the fifth time is the charm? Happy holidays from my fam to yours and everybody else!
I am off Friday through Monday. π Surfing here all day Friday, getting to try out the new wetty. Just wish the wind would die down a bit on the east side , for the rest of the weekend(or at least one day).
That’s TC in the barrel … I miss those early mornings at that place with the old crew! So much fun!
Stoked to surf today. I hope everyone finds a bump to shred on. I am trying to decide on driving South, or staying local and surf the Zoo. hmmmmmmm
Well after watching the news, and seeing that the Skyway is closed southbound, I think I have my answer on where I am surfing. Fingers crossed it is fun. I haven’t surfed in forever(or so it feels) π
Yeah Rob those days were epic. Cant believe thew Skyway is closed, goofy. High winds? I would have gone somewhere in the b-ton area. should get fun in a few hours, cant wait to see the pics.
I miss those days terribly. We were on every swell. Good memories though for sure. The Skyway was closed earlier due to a fatal accident (wrong way driver) … it is officially open again to traffic as of 9:25 am.
Hope that everyone scores today. I am sitting at my desk. π
I ended up at The Zoo, not by choice, and it was super fun for about an hour as the tide started back in. I had full intentions of heading south, until i turned on the TV this morning π Such a tragedy that some POS got behind the wheel of their car, so inebriated, and killed people. And since when did it become such a “thing” for these types of accidents. One of my designers uncle was killed at the beginning of the year by a wrong way driver(it was the one in Tampa by malfunction junction). Alright, rant over π . Pics are being worked on right now. I got a good one of TC for ya MW.
stuck at work today…arg. Hopefully something left over in the early am tomorrow…any thoughts?
sorry cde, its going hard east. check out anna maria island Sunday pm or early Monday if the 098 buoy hits 3-4ft or plus from the south there may be a small ridable bump
Does anyone else use the bottom of their chin to help push into some waves? On occasion, usually when the waves can be tougher to catch, I find my chin is bruised after surfing. I tend to push on the nose with it to help get weight forward, and hopefully push over the wave. Or am I the only one? I don’t know where I picked up this habit, but I seem to be doing it a lot, mostly because I surf mush waves I guess.
no but I have strained my lower back paddling hard, its been a bother for months only hurts when I surf
Only had a short break during lunch and scored some fun ones doing a N clwtr drift. Full suit and I got cold after an hour…so worth it though.
Other topic: tried to donate and had trouble with the pay pal last time. Message me? docdokka@hotmail.com
thanks Greg for the donation, helps a lot when your selling cocos for a living π it’s all good. I’m glad you scored on your lunch break. I hope there’s a miracle south bump on Sunday pm for you
Miracle south bump…. will be looking — but it’s gotta get warmer then 61 degrees … blarg that I am such a wuss when it’s cold