I mentioned some problems the American wave forecasters have had in recent days with their forecasts a couple of days ago. Well it appears that climate change may well be to blame - over the last few days the model parameterisation from Wave Watch 3 in polar regions cannot handle the lack of ice at the poles - (round about now polar ice is at its minimum by the way) and this record low ice has mean erroneous swell of the very high wave period variety has been seen pouring out of the poles and propagating south.

It does beg an interesting question though - what would happen to waves in the UK if you took the polar ice caps away - there is an enormous swell window sat up there in northern waters and with no ice, there could be some decent, as yet, untapped north swells. Corn, unfortunately, is too protected by the Irishers and the thistles and east shorers would be the folks who stand to benefit most.

Meanwhile - winds will probably f*&k up any chance of a decent swell this weekend - unless you can find a break which likes a north-westerly that is.

someone asked!

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Steaky

The american forecasters went do-lally today and all manner of strange forecasts have been poisoning the surf forecasters automated systems. Not sure what happened to the model output, but it started plugging in some crazy bad assed swells down from the north for some reason.

I think its all fixed now, but somewhere in the depths of the forecast there is some decent waves to be had from some time Friday night onwards over the weekend. You'll note some vagary there - as when there is extra tropical storm activity going on, it makes the forecast models change around a lot and getting the detail is troublesome

Storms Leslie and Michael are out there - one big and weakening - the other compact and with a lot more energy.

The first shunt of swell from Les will start to pep up through late Wednesday as the upper trough picks it up and the system deepens into a proper Atlantic belter through Thursday and Friday. The swell will arrive on Saturday before sunrise down 'ere in Kernow - the track is a little too far north to send anything too mental our way, but if it was a roast meal i'd be thinking 3 slices of beef, 3 roast pots, peas and broccoli, rather than some kind of 3 different types of meat, 2 yorkshire puddings, peas, broccoli, parsnips, cabbage (red and white), carrots onion gravy sunday lunch extravaganza with all the trimmings. Plenty to feed the ox in other words. Lets face it most people are more content with 5 foot with the odd 6-8 footer than 6-8 foot with the odd 10 footer coming through. Maybe its my age but give me the former any day.

All eyes will be focused on where the high decides to settle in over the weekend. Currently it's looking like there is good consensus in the models. But the high settles in about 60 miles too far north - If it can just nudge that tiny bit further south on Saturday when the swell is at its peak, then its is going to get REALLY REALLY good.

the Europeans think this >>> (best model)

the Met Office think this >>> (next best model)

the Seppos think this >>> (next best model)

On Sunday all the models agree with south easterlies but the main grunt of the swell will be gone by then.

Then Early next week the dregs of Michael will raft over to the eastern side of the pond and another pulse of swell is possible - too far away for the detail mind.

hoof

What looked like some good potential for the middle to the end of next week has now become something of a big blown out mess. Typical - still at least the sun has been out these last few days and there's been a few nibblers to. A blowy week's ahead, with some big and bouncy ones growling in, but there's prob too much NW in the wind to make even the sheltered spots clean up.

There's pretty good agreement in the model's that pressure looks like rising again next weekend - so there's the hope that there'll be a a few feet and a sou'easter by sunday or monday.

A couple of ex hurricanes are out there, but so far there doesn't seem much interest from any of the upper disturbances to turn one into some decent waves. some longer period stuff from one of these will reach kernow late fri or sat but i dont think the wind will be playing ball 'til Sunday

Plenty wave

Looking nice.

This is about the best set of charts I have seen in a long while - There's a lot of chopping and changing in the forecast, but plenty action out in the sea and a good chance of some south-east wind will mean nice big clean waves.

Worth a tentative clearance of the decks for the middle of next week!

push-woman-push

Blocking high

I'm liking the look of the latest forecast runs - for a while now it been locking to build in a nice block over northern France and southern UK. It should bring lots of nice weather. The nights are drawing in mind and those extra couple of hours of dark meant it was decidedly nippy when I went for a run this morning.

Good waves in September start with a blocking high - its like the foundation stone. Now all we need is one of those hurricanes to reel east and clip onto an atlantic storm and some upper air mobility.

The above has decaying hurricanes, but no interest from the upper air, and without that, we'll be struggling.

HURRICANE

This is an outlier in the forecast charts and as such is a long way from being a confident forecast

- BUT lo... there on the horizon, a few thousand mile away, lies an extratropical hurricane. It's perched menacingly in the slot...

Cross reference that chart above from the Seppo forecasters, against the might of the ECMWF modellers in Bracknell (who get it right a lot more often) and there are some similarities with the Azores ridge but the detail is very different - especially to the west of the ridge.

Confidence is low, but this is worth watching carefully.