There was a time long ago when surfers forecast what the waves were going to be doing in the future themselves- just by looking at a picture of squiggly lines. They didn't go on the interweb and get spoon fed numbers and stars. These squiggly line pictures were hard to find -the world wide web only existed in Tim Berners-Lee academic brain at the time- and to see them you had to watch the BBC weather religiously...
All while praying that Michael Fish didn't stand in front of the squiggles. The only other free source was in the quality newspapers but their squiggly line pics were very basic and not much cop. You could pay your hard earned cash for a weather fax (a fax machine is like a crap paper based internet minus Facebook) but fax machines were not common in most homes.
Figuring out what the waves are doing from squiggly line pictures is a skill every surfer should have. Knowing how the wind aligns with the isobar lines and how fetch and wind speed affect swell size is important. You can be in charge of your own destiny. All surfers in those days would always get excited about 'onion ring' lows, so named because they looked like... you get the idea. A rare beast, the perfect onion ring low in the Atlantic matched with offshore winds in the SW approaches is what makes for watery fun times- big, clean swell. If you've been looking at your numbers and stars you'll have noticed the pixels are excited all because of what's happening on the squiggly line picture. Do some research, buy Tony Butt's excellent book on Surf Science, learn the old ways young Skywalkers... Cos it's onion time!
Pictured above- Mr Alan Stokes, Little Fistral, lunchtime today.
