Over the coming days, we’ll be profiling the work of Adam Wright, from SoCal Surf Forecast. Adam was cool enough to answer a series of questions from our writers, all about surf forecasts. Here goes!
DailyStoke.com: It’s one thing to follow a surfing forecast site like yours, religiously, but it’s quite another to understand in great detail the information that is presented there. Do you have any suggested resources for surfers who want to figure it out for themselves, or at least better understand the services you provide? We’ve reviewed the Surf Science book and Wetsand’s Surf Forecasting Book.
Socalsurf.com: I am all for people getting into forecasting for themselves… in fact I encourage it on my sites…it is always super cool to see surfers become more connected and passionate about forecasting, and in the end I think it makes people better surfers or at least have more fun, which is what this sport is supposed to be about.
Like you mentioned there are a few books out there that sort of go over the mechanics of forecasting, but they sort of assume that you have the basic vocabulary and terminology already. I think that it is important to build a “basic weather” foundation, where you understand where and why wind blows, how atmospheric pressure works…things like that. I have a post on the blog that helps to cover some of the specific forecasting basics.
Generally, if I know that someone is interested in forecasting but is starting from scratch, I recommend that they spend some time watching the weather channel, and the nightly weather forecasts on the news. Yeah some of them are super cheesy and pretty dumbed down but they do get you familiar with the meteorology terms and basic weather patterns. Talking a basic oceanography, physical geography, or intro to meteorology college/Junior-college course is another great way to get a lot of the terminology.
Once you understand the basics then those surf forecasting books, and sites like mine, suddenly make a lot more sense…you start to see where we are coming from an information standpoint and you can make the intuitive leaps that you sometimes need to put together “weather” with “marine/surf forecasting”.
Resource-wise the internet has a grip of information about weather forecasting, understanding weather patterns, oceanography, meteorology , hydrography. You can find anything…all the way up through PHD level information (big brain stuff)…you just jump on Google and there it is. The hard part is learning what you need to look for…once you have the basic idea down it gets a lot easier to refine your search for more info.
Adam Wright runs www.socalsurf.com and is a professional
meteorologist. He’s been a surf forecaster since 1999, and covers SoCal and Baja for Wavewatch.com as well as the weekly snow and surf outlooks for Fuel.tv. DailyStoke happens to think there is no better resource online to understanding waves, in plain English, than Socalsurf.com. Learn more there, now!
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I agree. Adam knows his stuff. His site is a goldmine of surf forecating information. Congratulations on finally posting something interesting DS.