A lot of the long period swells in recent years didn't really send swell to monmouth county. A lot of us had to drive south or into NY to surf swells like Bill. I know there was some discussion, but this surfline feature sums it up perfectly - see the diagram on slide #20 http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/mechanics-long-beach-new-york_58972/ hudson valley diverts all long period swell north and south of it. hopefully this doesn't happen with katia...
If you take a close look at the Swellinfo wave maps, you can see the Hudson Canyon refraction influence. In Monmouth County, the southern half of the county sees much more wave energy then the northern half.
that was great to see the refraction of long period swell depending on the swell direction. thanks for posting
Man that is cool. I finally understand all those ankle high days at the Hook and cranking surf down in Long branch.
I've always said the magic numbers for northern MC are a S or SSE swell, 10' @ 10 sec... about as long a period as the place can handle without starting to get that "Canyon Effect," which refracts swell away from the local beaches. But once it gets up into the 14 or 15 sec periods, you start to see more swell making it through the Canyon Area, and hitting our beaches. I could be wrong, but I'll bet that's what happened with Irene. I would not be surprised if the numbers during the peak of the Irene swell were something like 15' @ 14 or 15 sec. If anybody has that data, I'd love to see it posted here. Mr. Info???
Direction of the swell along with wave period are key for the refraction process. A longer period south swell will actually get refracted towards Monmouth County, where as the easterly swell will get refracted away. Irene was a very southerly swell, where as Katia will be ESE. This is my first hurricane season living in New Jersey, but in the past, It seemed the cutoff point was around Belmar, where Belmar and to the south would see most of the long period energy and to the north would be smaller.
thats how it was with bill. a few towns north of the cutoff, the swell size was pretty much cut in half
Awesome write up, really spells it out for us to see exactly how the refraction happens with different periods and directions. I remember being so confused during Danielle last year when I checked Belmar and it was head high and north of there was only knee high. I wasted like an hour driving around during that swell checking spots and then ended up back in Belmar haha, but now I get it!
Just checked Squan, hardly surfable..Chest high but sloppy and disorganized. Winds are blowing pretty hard onshore at a constant 15-20 mph. Plus you can't even see well up there because all these crap rainclouds are blocking the sunrise. My brother left for LI at 4:30 to surf and check out the contest, I'll let yall know if it was worth the treck for him.
