Season 1, Episode 9 of the podcast features a very nerdy conversation with Scott Stripling. We discuss rituals, surf photos, the Surfrider Foundation, and the science behind generating a surf forecast.
This episode includes: Weekly Local Happenings
- Winter Storm Riley Gallery
- Meeting Austin and Talking Marine Debris
Surf Report/Forecast
- Winter Storm Riley Recap
- Winter Pattern Continues
- Cold Front and Another Low
Water Quality Testing
- Blue Water Task Force
- Surfrider Foundation
- Lab at F1RST Shop
Surf Rituals
- Gathering the Crew
- Coffee and Sun Salutations
- Post Session Breakfast
- Post Session Beers
Surf Forecasting Tools and Techniques
- NWPS
- OPC
- Weather Models
Transcript
Brad: [00:00:00] All right. We’re good. All right. I guess we’re starting. Bradley Wells. Christian. Here we are. Here we go. March 9th, 2018. Episode nine. Episode nine. Talk story. And we’re here with Scott Stripling.
Scott: Scott Stripling. Introduce yourself here a little bit, Scott. Scott Stripling, Surfrider Foundation, uh, Waterman, Meteorologist, National Hurricane Center.
I’m making, uh, Ocean and wave forecast for the open Atlantic and Pacific. Cheers to you, sir.
Brad: So, you know, it’s going to get nerdy, you know, with an intro like that. Oh goodness. I can’t wait.
Chris: And, uh, I don’t know if anyone’s noticed that there’s things in front of us now. These little. Yeah.
Brad: I guess that’s it.
We’re going to just dump into the weekly haps, which includes all of this.
Chris: We can kind of go there if you want to lead us right into it. I
Brad: think you just did.
Chris: Oh,
Brad: well, here I go. So we’re very lucky to have Caleb being the audio and now visual guy. He is being [00:01:00] nominated for more and more
Chris: roles. It takes a village.
It takes a village. And you know what? We put it out there. We’re like, maybe we need a little help. And Caleb was like, you know what? I think I got the help for you.
Brad: Yeah. And he showed up with three microphones, a mixing board. And so hopefully this is going to turn into something of a better quality
Chris: product.
Uh, this episode. Uh, well, I think we are testing. Is this thing on? Yes. I think this will work with your rig studio. Yeah. I mean, I mean, if you guys saw how we have this all set up, there is strings tape.
Brad: Yep.
Chris: Kind of pulling it all together. Yeah. I actually have
Brad: resin and epoxy on my fingers and trying to stick it in there to keep the camera up.
But we are rolling and we’re live
Chris: and, um, listen, it’s a labor of love. We’re doing it for, well, we’re doing it for, well, we’re doing it for everybody. We’re doing it
Brad: for everybody. We’re just having fun. So, um, some of the weekly halves, I think that I wanted to talk about was. One, we’re working on a gallery for this last swell and not only a gallery, but it’s sort of like a mega gallery on thank you [00:02:00] surfing.
Uh, I recognized the other day when I was scrolling endlessly through Instagram trying to find every single picture that I could find of the swell that it was kind of annoying. And, uh, so I reached out to a few of my photographer friends and I said, uh, do you guys want to give me a couple of images, like submit some stuff and then I’ll put it in one place.
Like, yeah, I was thinking the same thing because there’s. Such a pain in the ass to go around everywhere to find where all the images are. Why don’t we put ’em in one spot? And, um, so yeah, I’m taking submissions right now and I’ve received some. It’s been really cool. Um, one of the things that I try to do is not ask for certain things in the submission.
It was just whatever. Right? And so the first, uh, thing that I looked at actually today was like a lot of lifestyle stuff from like. From the beach.
Chris: Right.
Brad: Like sitting on the beach and seeing what everybody was doing and it was kind of mind blowing. I mean because there’s a show,
Chris: not just out in the water and what’s going on, the cartwheels are coming down the faces of these waves.[00:03:00]
But you have the people that are watching it and people that are like, Oh, there’s waves in Miami? And you know, I feel like I’ve heard that a couple of times over in random different places. Like, Oh girl, did you see the waves at the beach? I went to the beach and blah, blah, blah. And you’re like. That’s right.
We got some waves up in here. One time a year. I know. Listen, for this one time
Brad: a year, we’ll take it. I’ll take it. So yeah, taking in all these submissions right now, and over the next few days, I’m going to start putting all that stuff together. Honestly, I have no idea what’s going to come out of it. It’s what I’ve seen so far has been awesome.
Well, you
Chris: know,
Brad: we did
Chris: that one event here at the shop once before we kind of like got a photo gallery of all, you know, three different photographers at the time, three or four photographers and we kind of showcase. Are we thinking of maybe doing something like that again? Something ain’t got to, you know, let’s do it done.
Brad: So I guess we’re doing that. Uh, so look for that, I guess, an announcement sometime soon. I guess we’re going to do some sort of photo something or other after I put this gallery together. It’s shaping up. Definitely.
Chris: [00:04:00] I bet. I can only imagine how many, I mean, there was just. Richter, how many pictures there are out there from up and down the coast everywhere.
Like my whole Instagram feed is like, wow, wow, wow. It’s just like the whole coast lit up.
Scott: Yeah.
Chris: And
Scott: now with drones, you’ve got even a million more, you know,
Chris: how was a reef road drone footages that were just incredible. Yeah. Incredible stuff. Oh my God. It’s just good. What’s happening in the shops? Shops.
Well, we, uh, we’ve been busy here with surf kind of going on and hopefully we got some more surf coming up on top and on top and we’ll go ahead and discuss that. But, um, currently we don’t have any, uh, events lined up here other than the next ones that we’ll go ahead and plan. But at Division in our spot in Wynwood, uh, next Thursday will be the start of the TV show that we had done with Ami James from Miami Inc.
fame as well as Chris Nunez and it’s called The Tattoo Shop and it’ll be on Facebook Watch and that’ll be next Thursday. I’m not sure what time it’ll probably be in the evening. We’re actually going to do a viewing party of it at the division shop in Wynwood. Um, so you have
Brad: something going on. Yeah, so
Chris: we’ll be [00:05:00] posting stuff.
We just haven’t kind of nailed down the exact details. So we’ll be viewing it there on Thursday and then. Um, we did eight episodes or webisodes, so there’ll be one released every week starting next Thursday. And then every Friday that follows it, or the next day, we’ll be having a Facebook live where Ami and the crew will be doing Mystery Tattoo, where you can kind of come in and put your arm or leg through this wall and not know what tattoo they’re going to give you.
Would you do that? I’ll probably sign up for it. So that’s going to be coming up as well, and that should be pretty cool. So out of there, every Thursday and Friday, we’ll be having something going on for the next week. So follow Division Wynwood if you don’t already. Um, kind of just stay tuned cause it’s going to be fun.
Are we being
Brad: modest or do you just forget that you’re doing all these things? I mean, that is a weekly happening. And who came up with the tattoo
Scott: glory hole idea?
Chris: Uh, I think Ami and these guys did. That is incredible. And it was kind of the basis as to how Facebook picked up to give them a show was because they did the mystery tattoo.
And they had a couple people do it and they had such a strong showing of it that [00:06:00] Facebook had to look at and be like, Whoa, maybe we have something here. And that’s where kind of the TV show got produced. And it’s, and it’s, and it’s a cool TV show because it’s not like the scripted reality that they had done and was kind of like the basis of so much shows nowadays.
It’s kind of come from, uh, You know, like a day in the life kind of point of view. You have a, you know, very like vice TV esque where, you know, it’s just these guys doing what they do and just producing amazing pieces. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. So I guess we have both of that.
Brad: Yeah. Uh, I think another thing that, uh, Chris and I maybe want to talk about, Chris probably doesn’t even know I want to talk about this, but, um, we went surfing together the other day up coast in Southern, uh, Palm Beach County.
And as we paddle out, uh, this kid kind of paddled over to us and was like, Hey, are you, thank you, surfing. And Chris is like, Hi, I’m Chris. And that’s Brad. And yeah, we do that thing. And so this kid was super stoked, um, Austin. Yeah. Austin. Cool. And, um, it was [00:07:00] super weird, you know, to kind of have that happen.
Um, but at the same time, you know, I was like, well, what do you got? Why do you watch what we’re doing? What do you, and he’s like, well, I’m learning a lot about forecasting and, and what there is going on in the community here. And one of the other things that I wanted to know was, well, what, what’s important to you?
What do you want to see us talk about? What are the issues that are important to you? And this goes back to the episode that we had, uh, last week, which we just reposted, um, which is like the kids these days, right? He was, I have no idea. He’s like maybe 17, 18, 19 years old or something like that. And, um, When I asked him for any ideas yet, he didn’t say anything.
He was like, I don’t know, just like keep doing what you’re doing kind of thing. And then later, um, I paddle over the top of a wave and I’m paddling past them to like, go out to the outside. And he’s like, Actually, I did have an idea. And I was like, all right, let’s hear it. He’s like, you know, I’ve never really seen a swell like this and it’s so big that it’s pushed [00:08:00] in all this Marine debris, like all this plastic, all this garbage.
And it just kind of occurred to me that there’s all this stuff in the ocean that’s floating in on the, on these waves. And I’d never seen anything like it. And some guy, when I started surfing years ago, I imagine some crusty old salty guy, probably like us being like, you know, pick up, uh, he’s like, what do you say?
Pick up one piece of trash for every wave you catch. And so the kid told me this and I was like, this is incredible, Austin, you know, like good on you. I mean, this is, this is the kids today, you know, the kids these days. And it was super cool to, to run into him. And he was amped as anything to be serving waves like that.
It was
Chris: way cool. Although, I will say that if we’re going to judge that, on the session that I had, I probably would have picked up not much trash. Ha ha ha ha! God, how do you go two hours, get four waves, and two of them you’re going straight on, you get one pitched, and the other one you’re like, I’m just going to toss my board.
Really? God! But you know what, Austin, I like where your head is at. [00:09:00] He’s absolutely right. I think that’s great, and I think that’s amazing that, These kids are having so much more of a proactive approach on doing this last
Brad: time on the last episode I’m just like in awe of how they handled themselves, and I know they’re not supposed to be In tune with anything and they’re all just sitting there on their devices and all this kind of stuff But then you have something like that happen and you’re like, I don’t believe that for a minute.
Chris: Maybe they’re bored Maybe they’re bored from having so much technology their whole lives that they’re just like, I know this isn’t, this doesn’t seem fake. I, I like, I just feel like it’s a natural instinct that you’d be like, uh, I need realness. I need realness. Maybe they’re looking at certain things like that and they’re saying, Hey, like I could maybe make a real change in my local neighborhood.
That’s where it starts.
Brad: Yeah. Well, anyway, it’s super cool. Austin. Good on you, Austin. Shout out to you up there in Southern Palm Beach County.
Chris: That was pretty cool though.
Brad: I mean,
Chris: even Terry that we had here a couple episodes ago, he had somebody come up to him, a young lady that he didn’t know. And she was just like, you know, I was kind of interested [00:10:00] about your theory about the jetties and the breaking up of the swell as it comes along the coastline.
She’s like, I never even thought of that before. And he was like, well, that’s kind of cool. That somebody just randomly came up to me, you know? So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s thrilling a little bit that you have, like we’re like connecting in a sense to other people out there that are just.
Brad: So clearly it’s been bombing.
It’s been the best swell that we’ve had best run as well that we’ve had and. Couple long time years. I mean
Chris: we still
Scott: had waves
Chris: today.
Brad: Seven days of ground swell at South Beach is quite a run of swell.
Scott: That low is not dead yet.
Brad: Yeah, uh, that’s pretty interesting. That low is
Scott: probably producing like an eight or ten year swell.
And they’ll lighten up the whole Atlantic. You’re hearing it here first, folks. You guys seen any, uh, video from the Caribbean? From Puerto Rico, Tres Palmas, the Caribbean? How ridiculous is that? That was awesome. [00:11:00] Well, they had, uh, northwest wind right behind the front as it first came in. It was a little bumpy, but I’ve seen some spectacular video the last few days.
It’s still going on. And I’m guessing this is all still
Chris: from the same storm, right? Same storm, yeah. I mean, how much longer do you think we still have? Or at this point of In meteorology is it just you can’t really tell how much more it’s left other than monitoring buoys, but at this point you’re just like just be stoked for whatever it is that you get left.
Scott: The low is lifting off and it’s not, uh, no longer pointing at us. So maybe today or tomorrow will be the last day of swell we’ll see on the Florida coast. But as the low is moving off to the northeast, it’s still pushing swell south and southeast towards the Caribbean and Africa into the southern Atlantic.
So Africa is going to be going off for the next week.
Brad: Buy a plane ticket.
Scott: It’s
Brad: probably cheap. We’re uh now getting a travel agency going. Next episode. Chase that swell. Um but yeah, you know, it’s been an incredible run of swell here in South Beach and in all of South Florida and it continues on um [00:12:00] really through tomorrow and Sunday like Scott was just saying and then um the trend is our friend.
It looks like uh we’re coming into prefrontal the next few days. Gonna warm up. Maybe get a little southerly flow. Maybe some like crossed up wind shop with a little bit of that groundswell can make a little funny peak Get out on the kite. This guy’s gonna be kiting I’m sure of which
Chris: I got to ask you is it was there something that just passed recently for the kind of locally within the city of Miami Beach of it because I saw some cheers and whatnot of I’m guessing that there was a meeting yesterday That had changed the tide in regards to kite surfing on Miami beach
Scott: There was a proposal being considered by the neighborhoods Committee, right?
Um to ban or limit Kite surfing and some are part of Miami Beach. Right. But after several months, uh, three, four months of meetings and discussions, um, and the Miami Beach Kite Borders Foundation, really pushing hard and presenting a proposal over and over to the city and [00:13:00] trying to educate the commissioners, I think we finally got our point across that there’s mainly one location where there hasn’t been a problem.
The 25th Street area, which everyone I think could understand. The beach has eroded there. Got, uh, condos and, uh, Hotels. lots of residents, and they’ve put the new, the new, uh, lifeguard tower there. Right. Um, so that, it seems like they’ve come up with a resolution that, to get, uh, to allow everybody to be relatively happy there.
So the, I guess it was the neighborhoods, uh, uh, committee had another meeting. I thought that was going to go to then to the to the commission who the entire commission to the day stays but they decided to accept our proposal and Limit kiting I believe south except for 24th Street limited South of 29th and then allow us to keep our other, uh, zones in the rest of Miami Beach that we’ve been kiting.
We’re, we have generally congregated to areas where we’re in between lifeguard stands, [00:14:00] there’s a, the beach has been wide enough and we haven’t been near surf breaks or too much activity on the beach. So we’re cut, we’re, we’re where we need to be really. So they’ve excited to accept that and um, give it six months and see how it goes.
We’re going to be self policing, taking anybody who’s, who’s violating the rules out behind a woodshed. Right. Tell them how it works. Old school stuff. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Um, and, and, uh, the lifeguards need to be aggressive. Don’t, uh, don’t hesitate to, to, to whistle us in, give us, you know, talk to, tell us what you think is, uh, we should be doing that day, what’s what’s going on, what’s appropriate.
It’s going to take
Chris: a little time, the transition both on, on the, on the enforcement side of lifeguards. Right. Over the
Scott: last three, four, five years. We’ve had, we’ve had this, um, a little friction between the surf community and staying away. But that’s kind of worked itself out and the lifeguards have kind of kept it.
We’ve, we’ve figured out what surf breaks and what lifeguard stands and we can go near and how close. We’ve, we’ve always ready kind of worked as well. It’s kind of important. I think kiters have
Chris: done [00:15:00] a really good job as far as regulating themselves and kind of we have
Scott: to, or we would lose our, our right.
And that’s exactly why we founded the Miami Beach Kiteboarders Foundation is to. Uh, protect our right to ride on Miami beach.
Chris: No, it’s good stuff. Yeah. Good stuff. I, you know,
Scott: so the, the guys, the, the board on, on, uh, the kite surf, the kite boarding, uh, uh, foundation have done a really good job. Um, they’ve had numerous meetings with commissioners.
Uh, we’ve been sending in emails, we’ve had a change. org, uh, petition going around. Um, so we’ve, we’ve really rallied and we have educated the commissioners. To let them know what’s going on. It’s not
Brad: a very easy thing for a commissioner to understand. No, not at all. I mean, I know a lot of the commissioners have been pretty active in civics here in the city.
And, you know, even skateboarding is hard to grasp. Yeah. And kiting is like a whole other thing. The city
Scott: code is still really, uh, old and antiquated. Right, so yeah, it’s so archaic. On city code, there’s no frisbee playing, no ball playing. Right, right, I’m aware. It’s all really old. You remember [00:16:00] in 2011, 2012?
Right, when they tried to ban surfing. Yeah, tried to ban surfing, except on South 5th Street on Christmas. Right, when they were trying to enforce an ordinance that was already in place that they
Chris: had put in the 60s and then they updated in the mid 90s in regards to saying all surfing or water sports was designated from 5th Street South.
Right, exactly.
Scott: So kiteboarding is not even old. There’s no terminology that even refers to it on city code. And I think windsurfing is referred to
Chris: as para boarding or something like that. Because again, this was all done in the 60s. They didn’t really change. There was some update done in the 90s. But I don’t think much was, the verbage wasn’t really changed much.
Brad: What’s amazing is that we’ve all managed to police ourselves and managed to coexist with our neighbors. For this many years with literally no oversight, no regulation whatsoever and no
Chris: major like downside, no major incidents. And this is a perfect example as far as like, people just kind of come together and doing something and seeing a positive result from it.
Like, you know, whether it’s again, going back to the kids that we’re talking about, like actually doing [00:17:00] something about their, whether it is to clean up their beaches or whether it is to go out and fight for gun control or whether it is to go ahead and. Do things to make sure that they can still kite or do stuff there.
You know, all it really takes is a little effort. And guess what? Effort is free. Just do it. Right. You know, if you really want to do it, just do it.
Brad: Make it happen.
Chris: Yeah.
Brad: Back to the forecast, back to
Chris: the
Brad: forecasting.
Chris: So we got some wind chop this weekend.
Brad: Yup. So wind shop with a little bit of groundswell coming in.
And then, uh, next week on Sunday,
Scott: this is the big, this is the big story. Yeah. Front on Sundays. Um, so maybe something building in late Sunday afternoon, Sunday night. So it could be Wednesday, Monday. And then? And then looks like we got a high pressure after that for three, four days. You didn’t see that low come off the mid Atlantic?
Uh, no, I’m, I’m, I’m off. I’m off for it.
Brad: So, uh, next week looks like a frontal, just like Scott was saying. And then, uh, a low is supposed to come off of the South Carolina, Georgia area. That’s our sweet
Scott: spot.
Brad: Scoot up to the North Carolina area. [00:18:00] And, um, you know, Chicky, everyone knows chicky from dabuh.com, Chicky, you know, he is been talking about how it’s get it now because it’s gonna be gone.
’cause we’re gonna get this big offshore flow. But South Florida’s probably one of the only places in the whole. Eastern seaboard that will not be flat. It’ll be maybe the complete opposite of flat. And this would be because
Chris: of?
Brad: Fronts and a low. And it’s like a north or a northwest wind. And everywhere else would be pretty much dominantly off.
North, north ground.
Chris: Creating what
they call the refraction swell? Or is this?
Brad: I
don’t like the term refraction swell.
Chris: Okay. Bounce swell.
Brad: No, I don’t like that one either.
Scott: Well, in,
in, in the case of.
Chris: Throw it all out there.
Scott: In the case of a low, the swell will be actually generated from the low, so it’ll be true swell.
Brad: Right.
Scott: As opposed
to the wind swell that you get behind a cold front.
Brad: Right.
Scott: The refraction is not really the proper term, refraction, uh, refers to when it, when a swell feel, a wave feels the bottom and [00:19:00] begins to bend because of the, because of the bathymetry. What we get here is really unique and I’ve never forecast anything like this and this is the toughest spot to forecast for.
Brad: Thank
you.
Thank you.
Scott: In
Brad: addition you have no buoys. In addition you have no buoys. That’s another thing. Thank you.
Scott: I can’t understand why, with all this marine traffic, the millions and billions of dollars of commerce coming out of government cut, and nobody’s put a buoy out.
Brad: Can I just, uh, stop you for a second?
Sure. Scott has been extremely helpful. I’m working on another side project. You guys may have seen it called Check the Waves. Tony, shout out to you. Tony builds buoys. Tony has been putting in buoys, uh, himself, building them, programming them, getting everything to work. Doing it sometimes in a kayak. In a kayak.
I mean, the guy loves oceanography. He loves surfing. And he loves data collection. And the problem that Scott is so perfectly described is something that he’s really [00:20:00] trying and I’ve been trying to assist him. And so I wanted to thank you for helping us know where to put our efforts because you’ve been really, really great.
Well, I have designed a buoy
Scott: network for the area. And I’m working with Dr. Stephen Letterman. of FIU, Dr. Beach, the guy who does the, the 10 best beaches in the world over here. Um, we’ve been putting together a proposal, uh, we put one together last year for money for Ocean Observation Network, which could include buoys, cameras, um, and any other type of, uh, platform that would give us wave information that would be beneficial not just to us as surfers, but could help the Corps of Engineers doing beach re nourishment, could help the city.
Um, doing, uh, monitoring beach erosion, um, help Ocean Rescue with rip current generation, uh, uh, water quality control, trying to figure out where, you know, currents, connect it with modelers and do, uh, near shore ocean circulation. So, we’re, we’re putting this, um, proposal together, uh, through a NOAA program, trying to get some [00:21:00] money.
Uh, we’ll probably have to do it, uh, by baby steps and implement some of these platforms, these buoys, uh, One or two a year at a time. So this could be a five, eight, 10 year plan, but Tony and check the waves are certainly included in our, in our plan.
Brad: That’s cool. Yeah. Super cool stuff. Yeah. Um, do you guys want to check that out?
It’s actually on thank you surfing. There’s under the surf science, uh, tab, you can get check the waves and get a little more information about Tony and, uh, Um, all right, let’s get into water quality testing. Speaking of water quality. Yeah. Speaking of water quality, I don’t know if anybody else, um, felt a little ill in the middle of the week.
I got sick. It could have been a million different things. I was surfing a lot. I was working a lot, kind of burning the candle at both ends. As I’m imagining a lot of people were doing this week. Um, but water quality testing is now happening here. Thanks to Surfrider Foundation and to First Shop. You guys have got a lab.
Right here in the surf shop, um, in South Beach [00:22:00] and they’re testing water. Well, you can say more about this. I mean, that’s about as much as I
Scott: know. Surfrider has developed a water quality, uh, program, water quality testing program over the past, uh, couple decades. We call it Blue Water Task Force. Um, it was originally designed to test water at locations where they thought there was a problem and, and no other entity or agency was doing any testing.
Wow. So it would be a stand alone. Um, but what we’re doing is testing for enterococci. That’s the poo poo bacteria. Ah ha. Poo. Technical term.
Brad: Yeah. Poo poo bacteria. Poo poo
Scott: bacteria. Is found in the intestines of birds, animals, and mammals. Um, so if you get a positive test, you don’t know exactly what it is that’s producing it, but you do know that, that, that poo poo bacteria is there and it could make you sick and it could make you sick.
And it also is a, it’s, uh, we understand is a good indicator that other, uh, Foul things could be in the water could be interesting could be a [00:23:00] sewage leak or something like that. But anyway,
Brad: so it’s indicative of some sort of
Scott: potential Bad bad water and other problems. So we’re testing we’re doing now Are they more the tests we’re doing right now?
We’re trying to emulate the State Department of Health’s Florida Healthy Beaches Program. They have, uh, nine beaches, I think, in Miami Dade County. So we’ve grabbed five of them, uh, four here on Miami Beach and one in Surfside. And we’re gonna, we’re testing, um, on Thursdays. They test every Monday. Uh, you take the sample, uh, you prepare it, you put it in the incubator, let it sit 24 hours overnight and see if the bacteria will grow.
You come back and then check the, the results the next day.
Brad: Stupid question, where do you get the sample? Like, how does the sample get?
Scott: Okay, so we’re, we’re, one of the sample sites is here. Okay. We go out with a plastic bag, walk out in about waist deep water, and grab a sample from about knee deep. Um, flip it closed, tie it up, and bring it in.
Okay. And [00:24:00] prepare it and put it in the incubator for 24 hours. So it’s not like
Brad: you’re taking a boat out. No, no. Or you’re not playing. We’re
Scott: in the water where swimmers would be. Where most people would be, right. Swimmers would be. Okay, interesting. We’re probably near, we’re pretty close to the shore. Right, right.
Um. But that’s where people are going to be entering and exiting the water. So anyway, the bathing areas, so almost all of these sites are public beaches where the public would be attending the beach. So we’ve selected five sites here. 21st 53rd. Ocean Terrace at 75 or 6 or so, 73, um, 73, and then Surfside at 93, I believe.
We’re collecting samples on Thursdays, processing them, and then reading them on Friday and distributing our information. So, we collected, uh, yesterday, I read the samples today. Documented our results and we, um, we were transmitting out to the world, the newsletter, Instagram, Facebook. Uh, we’re going to be sending them to city officials, possibly hotels [00:25:00] in the area and everywhere we can to, to spread this information.
Now the state. It’s testing on Mondays and their results are available on Tuesdays. So we’re testing on Thursday and have results Friday. So we’re doubling the frequency of the state’s tests. So I think it’s super cool. Just to stop
Brad: your second, that the state has been doing this. This is a massively funded program through the state.
It was a massively funded, well, there’s kind of
Chris: like one of the reasons why Surfrider jumped into this a little bit more because we knew that it wasn’t going to be, that’s what’s so crazy
Brad: about it. You have a small private business that is stepping up to do something that the state used to do to keep us all safe.
Well, now you feel responsibility
Scott: and state is still assessing, but their budget has been reduced. The Florida healthy beaches program was funded. 50 percent by the EPA and 55, 50 percent by the state up until 2011. But the state legislators decided, hey, the EPA has given us money. I guess we don’t need to fund this any longer.
So, by doing that, they reduced the budget of the, uh, Department of Health, uh, water quality, uh, program. [00:26:00] And, uh, counties north of probably Orlando are not testing during the winter. And they have because assuming most
Chris: people aren’t going in the water at that particular time, so why should we test it?
Scott: And a lot of counties have reduced the number of test sites that they’re testing at.
And I think Miami Dade County might be one of the only counties in the state that’s still testing every week. So we initially thought we live off. Yeah. So most of the other, most of the other counties, most of the other counties are testing every other week. So we were initially going to fill in that gap.
But when we found out Miami Dade County is still testing a weekly, we said, okay, let’s just double the frequency, make it closer to the weekend. So get the information out before people go to the beach on the weekend. That’s smart.
Brad: Crazy. I had no idea any of that stuff was really happening. I was just so proud to hear you guys were doing it.
Well, we’ve been
Scott: talking about this for five, six years. It’s very expensive, but we had, yeah, we, we had some money set aside and we’ve noticed that the positive [00:27:00] test that you can see from the state was. pretty frequently. I was like, wait a second, this is, this is not good. Maybe it’s time. Well, as surfers, we all know we’re
Brad: canary in the coal mine.
Exactly. You go out, hurricane swell. Just poured, like the last swell we had from the hurricane. Well, the
Scott: water quality after, after Unoma was, was pretty foul for, for several weeks. Yeah, a lot of
Chris: that had to do with flooding and just a lot of runoff and whatnot. Like this past swell that we had, we didn’t really have much rain or any sort of runoff capabilities from what I saw.
So it seemed like that water quality was probably a lot better because all it was was just big swell rolling through, right? Well,
Scott: but it was, the swell was pushing in whatever is offshore and then you’ve got the rips, the circulations just holding it there in place. So, so one of the things we want to do is if we get, uh, Find a location that’s getting frequent positive tests.
Uh, we want to compare them, one with the states and whatever other data is out there, but we want to try and identify [00:28:00] where, what are the possible causes of it, and see if we can’t help rectify the situation.
Brad: I’m a big believer in making decisions with data. Yeah. And so if you have no data, it’s very hard to make decisions.
So this,
Scott: this is citizen science at its basic. I was going to say, and this is what’s great about it. I don’t even know about
Brad: it at its basic. I mean, you guys have a full on lab. And actually if you guys come to the shop, uh, this is first shop, ask to see it. I mean, it’s really cool. And anybody that works here will be able to tell you what exactly they’re doing there.
Like I
Scott: say, Surfriders been doing this for a couple of decades. They have a plug and play program. We just call them up, tell them we’re going to start. Send them a list of what we’re gonna do. They sent us an inventory of what we would probably need. We went over it Got a price tag on it. We found a few pieces of equipment on eBay for cheaper for half price Um, headquarters got us a couple things from the, the manufacturer for, for a discount.
So Cool. What could have been a, a five or $6,000 investment? We got it for less than four.
Chris: That’s amazing.
Scott: [00:29:00] And we have enough equipment and supplies to test for a full year, our five sites. That’s incredible. I mean,
Chris: would you encourage other people throughout the state to maybe go, whether it’s surf shops or not, or it doesn’t have to be a surf shop?
Could be. Anybody that’s really concerned about their local water quality about creating maybe a station or teaming up with their local Surfrider Have a little space, you know, and this kind of concerns me because you know, we can all help We don’t have to help the same way exactly if someone has like say has some room in a facility to be able to do it and it makes sense like It made sense for us here that we’re only steps away from the beach, you know, to be able to kind of do it.
It’s a surf shop.
Brad: It’s kind of seemed like a logical place. It’s a logical place. Yeah,
Scott: absolutely. Oh, um, by, by all means, um, go to surf, you could check out the Surfrider, uh, website and then look on our programs and you’ll see blue water task force. Uh, and see if there is a chapter in your area that is testing.
I do know they’re testing in Palm Beach. Broward County is trying to get their, um, program up and going and there’s some testing going on in the Clearwater area. [00:30:00] Uh, so those locations, um, they could certainly use additional volunteers. If you raise the money and, and, uh, get more supplies, you can test more sites.
We’re trying to get our, our system down. Um, verify that our results are pretty much in, in, uh, in line with what the state is receiving. And then we’ll look at expanding, um, in six, nine months or a year or so. Thank you. Thank you. That is so awesome. first.
Chris: Hey, we’re just, you know, we’re here to help however we can, honestly.
Brad: And like, honestly, if any of you guys are watching this in your local area, definitely look it up, exactly what Scott said, and see if you can pitch in in some way, make, make the suggestion, drop into the local shop and say, Hey, maybe you guys should put a lab back there. They may have no idea this is even possible, and you guys have a great model, and I’m sure you’d be sharing all that.
And it doesn’t take much room. The program
Scott: is plug and play, man, it can be implemented in a few months if you’ve got Got the money to get it started. Honestly, it
Chris: really doesn’t take much room and it’s such a big help and it’s so easy and it really brings the community further together. I’m looking at
Brad: you.
Yeah, [00:31:00]
Chris: Austin, make it happen. We’re counting on you. But I mean, this is also one of those things where, you know. Whether it’s you’re on the front lines, you know, helping out by picking litter up or whether you are donating and giving money to a local charity, whether it’s Surfrider to go ahead and give them the money to be able to, you know, keep doing these things or buy the equipment or you’re a place.
that’s hosting Yeah. Let’s say something like this.
Scott: Or
are the people picking out the water? Right. You know, taking the samples. Well, that’s one of the things about Surfrider. I’d always sent my 25 check for 20 years, but I’d never been involved, never been around a chapter. But I, I moved here and I saw that they were having a meeting.
I went to the meeting, met Mike Gibaldi and the rest is history, man. I’ve been involved. I’m, I’m hardcore ever since. He’s, he’s
Brad: good at taking people
Scott: in. Mike’s got a special way. Mike is Mr. Surfrider Miami. Yes.
Brad: It’s hard to argue that point. That’s for sure.
Chris: All
Brad: right. Let’s move into the next thing here. Um, this is, this is an interesting one.
I don’t know how even, did you come up with this? Which one? Uh, the next topic here, surf [00:32:00] rituals.
Chris: We were talking about it and, um, and you know, it’s just. It’s just one of those things that kind of popped up. You’re just like, you know, there’s so many different sports, right? And so many different sports athletes do different things.
Like maybe they’re going through, like they wear the same socks and they’re a baseball player and they wear the same socks for like a week straight. Playoff beards and hockey. Yeah. I mean, there you go. Like all these different things. And, and it was one of those things, like I’m sure there’s, I know.
There’s surf rituals that we all kind of have, whether it’s, you know, like I won’t eat a big meal before I go surfing kind of thing. I mean, I know it’s just kind of makes sense, but some people know
Brad: the, um, I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of or witnessed this, but it’s like the burning of surfboards.
Oh yes, we’ve done that before. To bring a smile. I mean, I’ve never done that. Have you guys done that? No. I have. Growing up, listen, Growing up down here and when you don’t get waves for a long time,
Chris: you’re like, You need like a full on seance. You’re just like Whatever it takes, bring me [00:33:00] waves. I thought
Brad: that was only like in cartoons.
No,
Chris: I’ve done it, I’ve seen it, and we put it out. I mean, we’ve also done it for like paddle outs, for friends that have passed and what not, and you kind of do something like that, but. That’s, that’s original
Brad: for sure.
Chris: Yeah, but then you start thinking like, maybe this isn’t really healthy. Maybe I shouldn’t be burning a surfboard.
Shouldn’t be inhaling epoxy smell. Yeah, well. That’s no bueno, and then you’re just like, alright, somebody put it out. Beer.
Brad: Alright.
Chris: But the
Brad: waves
Chris: do come. Somehow. They do.
Brad: So, maybe don’t give it up yet.
Chris: I mean, what sort of, do you have any rituals?
Brad: Yeah, I’ve got like a bajillion rituals. And are
Chris: they pertinent to the type of surf that you’re getting?
Is it whether it’s cold, whether it’s warm?
Brad: Um, I have a lot of rituals in my life to begin with, so I could probably go on here for a long time. Like, I’m definitely, I definitely put on my wetsuit left leg first. Have to. Really? Um, yeah, and when I put on my flip flops. Any reasoning for that? None. Okay. Um, I’ve Um, well, other than like I would die.
I would die
Chris: if I don’t. [00:34:00]
Brad: Uh, same thing. Something bad would happen. Same thing with flip flops or shoes. Left foot first? Yeah. Left foot first. Every single time. And you’re right
Chris: handed?
Brad: Yeah.
Chris: Do you do the same thing when you get on a plane going on a trip somewhere?
Brad: Um. Left foot
Chris: first to getting on the plane?
Brad: No, I try not to step on the crack, though, between the plane and the, and the, uh, You don’t want to break your mom’s back. I don’t know, yeah, I don’t know what that’s about. Other than that, um, You
Scott: don’t want to break your
Brad: mom’s back. I’m not, I don’t really have too many rituals. I mean, I actually, I do some sort of like little weird stretch that, um, has been videoed.
Oscar, don’t release that, please. Um, So I know some of you guys that served me a lot would know that one. It was like
Chris: pirouettes. It’s weird.
Brad: Um,
Chris: I don’t know. I
Brad: don’t know where I came up with it. Um, No, that’s pretty much it. Left leg first. They’re not surf specific. They’re more just like, if I’m leaving the house to go surf in the morning, like I’ll check to make the coffee, the coffee maker’s not on like a hundred times.
I’ll like leave, I’ll like get the elevator and then I’ll go back to the apartment and like make sure the toilet’s not [00:35:00] running, but that has nothing to do with surfing. That’s just my, that’s just my crazy mind. That’s just your,
Chris: your, well, I will do the left, the left foot first, uh, going into a, uh, a plane traveling to a surf trip and stuff.
It’s left lane, left foot first and like right hand on the thing. Like it’s a weird, it’s like a getting on and you’re like, okay, it’s weird. How that happens. And I also have a thing with like board shorts. I’ve got like 18 to 20 different pairs of board shorts. And for me, like they’re pertinent to like, all right, what kind of surfers out there?
Brad: Oh,
Chris: interesting. Am I longboarding or am I shortboarding? You coordinate shorts. Oh, dude. It’s like, it’s a vibe. It’s a feeling like shorts. This is my going out in the boat shorts. He is so fashion forward. Going out in my board shorts, you know, pull side of the standard. These are the shorts that are going to happen, you know?
So maybe not so much ritual stuff, but you know, I get the groove. You got some?
Scott: Probably just my stretching routine. I go through a, I’ve been doing yoga the past few years, so I’ve incorporated some yoga in it. I want to get, I want to get loosened up. Probably [00:36:00] extend my, my, my leash and put it on in the same manner.
But it’s mainly a stretching routine.
Chris: I, I will start to dry heave, however, when I get too excited, like all this adrenaline starts to build. Like one time I remember it was like a big swell and I got all adrenaline was pumping and then I had coffee as well on an empty stomach. Like I was, I was getting with, I felt like a cat with like a, with like a hairball.
So I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s just like, all of a sudden you’re like dry heaving, like I’m about to puke and it’s just because all this energy and all of a sudden all this anxiety starts to kick in. You’re like, it’s like waves. There’s waves. And all of a sudden you’re just like, and then you get in the water and all of a sudden you’re like paddling here, paddling there, paddling.
And then all of a sudden you paddle yourself out of position and you don’t chill. And it isn’t until like all that energy is expended and I’m just like, Oh, now we surf. Then I’m like completely exhausted. I’m just like, I’m done.
Brad: So I, uh, asked, um, some friends what their rituals were. We did get some responses.
Um, first one that came in, uh, I think it was the first one was [00:37:00] Josh. Um, and he said that he likes to serve with his friends. And so the first thing he does when he realized that there’s ways he calls like his crew and then he gathers everybody up and he’s like, let’s go serving together. Um, I thought that was kind of an interesting ritual because I’m not really like that.
So you said,
Chris: do you prefer surfing with friends or are you just, you’re cool with just going on your own always?
Brad: Yeah. For the most
Chris: part.
Brad: Even when I surf with friends, I surf by myself. Right. Pretty much. Kind of paddle off into your spot. Yeah. I don’t, I kind of like lose everything when I go out in the lineup and if I see a peak down there, it’s like.
Scott: See ya,
Brad: you know, like if we’re sitting next to each other on the same peak and it’s good and it’s like, yeah, well, we’ll talk for a little while, but like if you catch a right and I catch a left and I go down to two peaks down and you go down two peaks, it’s not like I’m going to be like, but where, but where did my friend go?
Because we need to finish that talk. And it’s not like that at all for me. Um, so I thought that was kind of an interesting one. And I know I like a lot of friends will call me and be like, Oh, let me know if you’re going to go out. One [00:38:00] friend in particular, um, Jaime, I know you don’t even have Instagram, so you’re not going to see this.
Um, but he’ll call me just to like, know if I’m going to paddle out. He’d be asking me how it is. Do I need to wear a wetsuit? Needed to know everything about it. He’d be like, all right, man, I’m at work.
Chris: Water quality samples.
Brad: Just saying. He wants to know the whole, the whole, the whole rundown. He’s like, all right, man, I’ll catch you this weekend.
So you didn’t want to go surfing at all? You just wanted to know every single thing that’s happening? Maybe
Chris: not for him with surfing. Maybe he was there. Maybe he was mentally surfing.
Brad: And I appreciate it. And that’s why I take his calls. Uh, what’s some other ones? Um, oh we got uh, Kenny wrote in. He had two actually.
He sent in one. Mr. Michelson. And then two seconds later he sent in like another one. He was like, Wait, no wait. Uh, and so it was the Dawn Patrol. Where he does like sun salutations, gets like amp for the sesh, and then, uh, gets some brekkie [00:39:00] afterwards, like a big, crazy breakfast. And that’s like one ritual.
And then he immediately wrote back, Oh wait, what about the afternoon sesh? And then like getting a beer at the end of the day. And I was like, oh, yeah, and then he had like some sort of conflict within himself and he couldn’t Settle any
Chris: conflict within yourself. That’s weird. I
Brad: Do you want me us to settle that for him?
So, I don’t know I mean actually everyone knows me will also say that I’m definitely more the evening sesh guy than the dawn patrol sesh guy
Chris: I feel like we just talked about this the other day when we were up coast. I mean, I feel like my body is just so much more looser at the, Oh no, I was talking to Kellen about this.
It was, and I had, you know, we were having some beers on trips and kind of stuff where you’re like in Costa Rica, it’s the end of the afternoon. You’ve had some beers at lunch. And you’re kind of just like in such a casual mode and just so relaxed and you just go out surfing. And I felt like my late afternoon surfing and early evening or just before, you know, dark.
It was kind of my best surfing because my body was just kind of loose and ready to go. Versus in the morning, [00:40:00] and maybe this is just because I’m an old guy now, at 42 that where it’s like the whole body just creaks, where you’re just like, you’re just like, I don’t know if I’m really ready for this. I guess I’ll just boogie board this whole wave in.
Scott: I’ve never been a morning guy. No? Never been a dawn patrol guy. Oh my god, I go occasionally. It’s so good to hear another surfer say that. I’ve never been a dawn patrol guy.
Brad: But you also, you’re a kiter now, so you’re like waiting.
Scott: That’s, that’s kind of why I got into kiting and windsurfing. It’s like waiting for the wind to come up.
So if you don’t get up till 9 or 10, and then the trades are built in, you can still get out and catch some waves.
Brad: Interesting. Maybe I’m doing the wrong sport this whole time. Don’t do it. Maybe? Maybe.
Chris: Just kidding, I like kiting. Uh. That’s what other people do. I’ve, I’m, you know, I’ve tried it. Have you tried kiting?
No.
Brad: Not yet.
Chris: Oh, I want to be there when you do. God, it is some good comedy, but I mean, I remember when Mark and I had first tried it once many years ago and, and it was for Mark’s birthday. Yeah. It was for Mark’s birthday. [00:41:00] Fantastic. I’ve Hobie Catted and I’ve wind surf, so I understand wind theory, um, but it was one of those things where Mark didn’t and we were kind of, you know, you’re parking the kite up at 12, you know, you’re kind of holding it there and you’re dropping it to two o’clock to go ahead and get, you know, get pulled up.
And get going, but Mark didn’t get pulled up and get going. He like got pulled and
Brad: launched. It was
Chris: great. It was like 20 feet in the air, went 20 yards over and then get slammed because you get slammed. You naturally hold and pull in. And then he powered back up again and took off again and got slammed again.
We crying. We call that crying. This is just salt water coming out of my nose. I call that ragdolling. Yeah. It’s so
Brad: common you have a name for it? This does not sound like a sport for me anymore. It’s so awesome. Like, I wish
Scott: somebody knows what they’re doing and you call it a thunderstorm gust or something.
You say, bwop, bwop,
Brad: bwop. Bwop again.
Chris: So I will be there the day that you try this.
Brad: Or never. As the case may turn out to be. Oh, by the way, the guy that, uh, calls me and wants to know everything that’s happening wants to go on a kite trip, uh, [00:42:00] so that we can all learn how to kite.
Scott: Could happen.
Brad: Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I’ll start up in the morning and then I’ll just take a nap in the afternoon while you’re kiting.
Sounds like a great trip.
Chris: And then you show me video afterwards
Brad: and I’ll laugh because you’re going to what ragdoll ragdoll. Yeah. He would definitely ragdoll.
Chris: Oh, it’s so epic. I mean, I, I died of laughter when I ragdolled too. I mean, it was pretty funny. I mean, it was one of those things where I’m dying of laughter.
I’m underwater. I’m dying of laughter. I should probably breathe. I’m underwater and I’m dying of laughter again because it’s so funny and then you realize like I should probably not pull down on this thing because that’s, what’s keeping me going up and going back. Yeah.
Brad: That’s a quick learning curve. You gotta imagine.
Golden rule. Let go. Let go. Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard to let go. Yeah. Hence my OCD, left foot first everything. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, so, um, we’ve been talking probably for a long time already and I feel like we’ve done a disservice to everybody because we have an incredible resource here and, um, it is Scott. He is a [00:43:00] professional meteorologist.
He does what I try to do, he does for a living. And so one of the things that I really wanted to get into with you, Scott, was, um, what are some of the tools and techniques that you use or that you could recommend and we can banter about this as much as you want, um, to, you know, the average surfer out there that’s looking to get better at knowing where waves are going to break, when they’re going to break, how big they’re going to be, what the conditions are going to be like, basically plan their life around surfing.
How do you do that better? That’s what we have to do around here.
Scott: Well, there’s all kinds of, uh, apps and, and contractors, uh, vendors that provide the forecast these days. Um, when I was growing up, that wasn’t available. And that’s actually one reason why I got into meteorology.
Brad: Same.
Scott: Uh, I lived a half an hour from the beach and I got tired of getting burned.
So I took a course in college and really liked it. So that’s, that ended up being my, my major at the end. But, um, um, most, if you didn’t know, most of the, uh, [00:44:00] Contractors, Surfline and everybody are using the NOAA wave model, NOAA wave watch,
Brad: wave
Scott: watch three, wave watch three wave model because it’s free. If you want to, you can go to NOAA, download the code, run it on a Linux box and provide your own forecast yourself.
Yes. You can run the model yourself. So that’s why everybody’s using that model. And it’s a very good model. Hey, we had a dog. Just show up. It’s a very good model. But if you use the models over time and you have some verification, you can see the model biases and their, their strengths and weaknesses. And
Brad: because the Wave Watch three is based on the GFS.
Okay? The
Scott: Wave Watch, uh, I think
Brad: we’re talking way over people’s heads already.
Scott: Well, all, all of the wave models use the winds of some particular. Uh, weather model to force the wave generation in the wave model.
Brad: Okay, so let’s just go back one half a step. Wind over water creates waves.
Scott: Yes, it does.
Brad: Weather models predict [00:45:00] wind.
Scott: That’s one of the parameters that you get outta the weather models. Correct.
Brad: And so when you have these weather models predicting wind, you can take that information and plug it into, and then trans the wave model into a wave model. Into a wave model. Okay.
Scott: Um, but in that same manner, the Navy has their own weather model and they’re using the Wave watch code to run to, to forecast their, their waves using their winds of their wa of their weather model.
Is that the NAMM model? That’s the, the Navgem, the, the, what used to be FNMOC. Oh! They, they, they upgraded the model and it’s called Navgem now I believe.
Brad: Okay, so that’s actually one that I don’t look at regularly. That’s uh, I’m gonna have to go check it That’s
Scott: probably available on the FNMOC website. Okay, um the European the ECMWF that we always talk about during hurricane season They’ve got a superior weather model and a damn good wave model also And then there’s I’ve had a lot of
Brad: trouble accessing that
Scott: way.
It’s not free. That’s
Brad: why Got to pay to play. By the way, all this stuff we’re talking about right [00:46:00] now, probably if it’s not on thank you surfing in the resources under surf science already, we’ll start adding this stuff in there so you can actually look at all these acronyms and I was going to
Chris: say a breakdown of the acronyms and click on GFS, meaning global forecast system used
Scott: to be the AVN model years ago,
Chris: which was known as.
A BN . Okay, there you go. But it’s the predominant model for, for, for weather forecasting. For the US government’s
Scott: goal was, it was Noah’s weather model. There you go. So Noah’s weather model is the GFS now Global Forecast system? Um, no. The E-C-M-W-F is the European Union. It’s a collaboration of several European countries.
Um, and it’s not, um, any government’s weather agency. The, uh, United Kingdom, Great Britain has, uh, the UKMET model. That’s their weather agency. But this ECMWF is a European Union and they don’t give you anything away from free. They, they actually even, uh, we’re going to even make us, us pay for [00:47:00] their weather model.
You mean us being Us being NOAA, National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center.
Brad: Oh, okay. I said, I don’t feel so bad being not being able to find this stuff. And we were,
Scott: and
Brad: Noah was considering, yeah, but I’ll thank you surfing you guys. And Noah was considering not
Scott: paying for it as well. Really? Yes.
But their stuff is so good. But their model is so good. We cannot go without it. Um,
Chris: the, and I’m guessing this is the European model that when the layman like myself, that’s watching the news and stuff like that, whether it’s kind of like when they’re forecasting a hurricane season, that seems to be the model that everyone gravitates to as the most sure prediction.
I’m just saying, no, I mean, I know that I’m sure there’s,
Brad: everybody’s got like a certain bias towards a certain model during a certain season and everything else.
Scott: It is going to be the model that’s going to be most consistent, probably from run to run. When I say run to run, um, we, uh, run our model every six hours.
So it’s run four different times a day, each time and inputting the most recent data. Um, [00:48:00] two times a day globally, they’re launching weather balloons, and that information is going into the weather models. So that’s it. Zero UTC and 12 UTC. And those two runs should be the most consistent. Um, reliable model runs of the day.
The European or the EC, or the Euro, as they’ll call it on tv, is only run twice a day at zero Z and or zero UTC and 12, uh, UTC. Um, it is gonna be the most consistent and then recent history, 10, 15 years, uh, in the long range, it has been the most reliable. Now the GFSs, they’ve increased the resolution, and it produces some really fine scale specifics about storm systems and feature and phenomena that are amazing that it picks up and shows.
And these fine scale features, like winds around an island, we forecast gap winds, trade winds blowing across Central America, and then accelerating on [00:49:00] the other side of the coast. It picks up on those things really, really well. Nicaragua? Nicaragua, exactly. That’s it. That’s epic. Um, yeah. Um, uh, uh, Tijuana Peck in, in, uh, in Mexico on the South side of the Gulf of, Gulf of Mexico.
Um, and it’s interesting to watch the, the evolution as we’re, for example, forecasting hurricanes because you’ll see a group of models that are kind of generally in line, but a lot of times you’ll see the GFS ends up being faster in time. It speeds up, but over time. So, almost without exception, the GFS kind of gradually, uh, goes toward, adjusts towards the EC, the European model.
Now sometimes, they’ll be a little bit divergent, and you’ll see them adjusting towards each other. Right. But when you have a group of models that you rely on that you think are, are pretty good and they’re all giving you about the same answer, then your confidence is, is much higher. Exactly. Right. On the forecast.
So that’s what we we’re looking at. We’re looking at, um, uh, a consensus. What are these, what are our main, uh, [00:50:00] best uh, performing models? How, how are they doing and, and how are they differing a amongst themselves? So for example, with, with Ima. Initially, um, uh, the GFS was going up the east coast and then it went towards the west coast.
And then it went back to east and then eventually went back to the west. Almost the entire time the European was going either up the center of Florida or to the west. Yeah. So all the models eventually shifted towards the European model, right? So when you see the model shifting towards the European, you’re, you’re probably put your money on that basket.
Chris: Wow. That’s so interesting.
Brad: Right? It really is. I mean, for me, they start to like have almost the characteristics of friends. You know, like you look at them and you’re like, Oh, he needs to go out more often. Oh, you GFS. You’re, Oh, he’s going a little bit too fast. I know you’re. You’re just a little, you GFS moving too fast again.
Scott: Well, that’s funny you’re saying this about this low developing this week. Well, you know, four or five [00:51:00] days down the line, sometimes the GFS spins something up and it might not be actually what’s going to happen. Zero did it too. Oh, did it? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So when you see that and you say, Oh, Hey, models in line, it’s likely going to happen.
Right? Some, some version of this, they might shift a little bit. Timing wise, a little north, a little south, but it looks like that that’s going to evolve. Okay, so this is
Brad: a major point that, um, I think that a lot of people miss with forecasting is that they look at, you know, days out and they don’t realize the further out you go, the less confidence you can have in that forecast.
Chris: Correct. The
Brad: closer you are, the more data you have, the more confident you’re going to be in that forecast. And so, um, we’re talking about weather models here. Right. As opposed to. Wave models because that’s kind of I mean doesn’t even really where it starts But for practical purposes of surf forecasting you want to start with your wave your weather models, right?
and then you’re coming downstream into wave models, right and then into observations and like Scott was saying before down here in South Florida or Observations are pretty much. We have we
Scott: have [00:52:00] no
Brad: Except for check the waves in Jensen. That’s the only one in South Florida.
Scott: No wave, no wave observations over the water.
We have recently gotten one wind observation. Uh, the company weather flow really was I kite surf. I windsurf. Um, they have put out a, um, a wind anemometer on top of one of the navigational buoys coming into government cut. Oh, that’s right. You were telling me that the other day. I gotta look at that again.
It’s on the web platform WindAlert. WindAlert. com Anyway, they put that out a year and a half or so ago. And that’s the most representative wind observation you’ll have around.
Chris: That’s awesome. I’m gonna go on a limb here. And I’m gonna say that Weather predicting is a little, I don’t know, not an exact science.
That’s, that’s why we talk in probabilities.
Scott: That’s what I tell guys I work with. Guys, look, we’re meteorologists. You got to be accustomed and comfortable with being wrong sometimes,
Brad: man.
Chris: All the time, pretty much. The gray area is your friend.
Scott: There are, there are [00:53:00] times when something, I, I can, we see something, I see something that I know is going to happen.
And when I know it’s going to happen, I will tell you. with certainty that this will happen. But otherwise, I, I want to give you the, the possibilities, the range of possibilities. As, as a hurricane forecaster, I want to give you enough information about what I know and what could happen so that you can make an informed decision for yourself that you will be comfortable with.
Right. And have confidence in it. Yeah,
Brad: and it’s, it’s okay to say like, I’m not sure yet. Right. And as a forecaster it, you wanna have that like
Chris: crystal ball and we know everything. How many days out would you say that you can start to get into like, a little bit more certainty here? Like inside, let’s go here.
Inside.
Scott: Five, three on day by, by three days out, we’re, we’re pretty confident. Okay.
Chris: Yeah, it’s good to know.
Scott: But, but getting beyond days, uh, three days, there’s a little less, three days.
Brad: Three days within what a storm might do. But not necessarily what the swell is going to do, say, in [00:54:00] Broward or Miami Dade County.
Scott: Yeah, uh, well, actually, this year, the Hurricane Center’s, uh, forecast verification statistics were the best ever. We have this, uh, thing we’ve always advertised to mariners called the Mariner’s 1 2 3 Rule that, um, Yeah. Every one day our forecast was generally a hundred miles off. So at day one it was a hundred miles.
Day two, 200, day three, 300. We were within 150 miles. That’s so
Brad: awesome.
Scott: Out on day three. Wow. This past year. That is incredible. So that’s a reflection of how good the weather models are getting.
Brad: Yeah.
Scott: Science and how is incredible. Huh? And how and how we’re learning to use them best. It’s not necessarily that any one particular particular weather model was that good, but we learned.
The weaknesses of each of the various strengths and weaknesses, and we know how to use them in together and have confidence on what is wrong and what is right and which was the best solution.
Chris: So it seems like with knowledge and the understanding of things and we kind of grow off of things [00:55:00] that within us as people, we get to learn and understand more, but we’ve understood just with water quality testing that there’s cutbacks within the government and it seems like there’s cutbacks within the environmental side of things within our government on the federal level.
Like, how does that apply into, uh, like NOAA and what you guys do? Do you, I mean, are you guys getting stripped of certain tools that you guys have to continue or are you guys still feeling pretty confident with what you have currently?
Brad: I don’t know if you want to take
that one. I’ll take it for him maybe.
Okay. As a private citizen.
Chris: Sure. I, I will appreciate it.
Brad: It is awful. It is God awful. What’s been happening in terms of science in this country on a federal level. I’ve worked in this field and I can tell you that it’s been slashed and cut a million different ways. And the things that we should be investing in, the things that’ll move us forward as a country, in my opinion, and probably most scientists who.
Do science
Chris: because with weather and hard weather like that, it’s about being proactive instead of reactive. It’s trying to get,
Brad: and the stuff that we’ve put into, uh, you know, into practice now was stuff that was put [00:56:00] into action, you know, decades ago. Science is not fast. Did we just put the GOES satellite up for example?
And it’s like that program probably started, I mean, you could tell me 15,
Scott: the seventies,
Brad: the seventies. Okay. And so if we stop funding now, it’s not even like us. That are going to be damaged. It’s going to be people to come and clearly the climate seems to be having an impact on what our storms are doing.
Storms are becoming more violent, more frequent, at least in my opinion. Right. I’m not a scientist.
Chris: The knowledge and
understanding isn’t necessarily being, uh, being taken away. It’s the tools and, uh,
Scott: tools and
funding just for, for, for bodies to do jobs. Right. The current administration is, is not a one high on science.
Um, they’re, they seem to be in, many in Washington are more concerned about profit, keeping, uh, keeping the, uh, U. S. economic machine rolling, everybody making money, or the, the bigwigs making money, um, the big dogs, [00:57:00] uh, and they’re moving away from science based decisions and going on what’s, what’s more economically, uh, positive or, uh, Uh, for them and, and, um, their constituents.
Yeah. Why, why use information
when you can use feelings?
Yeah. So actually that, since you mentioned that there have been proposed budget, significant budget cuts to the National Weather Service in Dan No. That would significantly reduce our, our workforce, the number of bodies that we have. Um, and if
Brad: anything, we need to be increasing that.
Right, exactly.
Chris: Because it’s not getting. Any easier. Right. And we’re not depending on it any less. The thinking
Scott: of some in Washington is, oh, we’ll privatize it. Which always drives me crazy about
Chris: the privatizing of so many different things, whether it’s that or No, there’s, there’s,
Scott: there’s room for certain aspects of it to be privatized.
Brad: But, um The government is really No broad stroke. It’s
Scott: gotta be But we serve a function [00:58:00] in Washington Warning, and we have some expertise, and if you take it away from us, you You’re really will affecting. Right. That’s why we’re in the department. Noah’s in the Department of Commerce. Commerce.
Brad: Ah, smart.
It’s because it’s important to make money in this country. And if you’re gonna have. Uh, no weather forecasting. It’s going to be very difficult to move goods around the country. It’s going to be very difficult to predict what’s going to happen with your crops. Oh, little things like this. What about commuting, even?
Or transportation? I mean, there’s a million, a million, I mean, we’re not even talking about tourism or anything else. Right. It’s, everything is highly dependent on weather. Right. And here we are being like, yeah, whatever. Weather shmether. Weather shmether. Just, like my dad said, stick your head out the window in the morning.
Is this a reaction to my dad saying that my whole life? Never really thought about that. Next up, next week, reflective, reflective moments, , um, going
Chris: into the deep psychology of what your parents did to you.
Brad: But uh, and is there any [00:59:00] other resources? Actually, I wanna throw a couple of resources out there that I think are super important.
Um, one, um, that was actually, that I think you had a lot to do with, um, is the near shore wave prediction system.
Scott: No, I did not, but I did, uh, verify. I participated in the verification study.
Brad: Uh, and you also were very instrumental in showing me this model. So there’s that.
Scott: Um, you’re instrumental. The, the wave models are generally for open ocean, for the open oceans, and they don’t, uh, take into account the wave interacting with feeling the ocean floor and doing and any interaction.
And there’s different dynamics in shallower water. Um, so there are have been, uh, wave models. One of them is called Swan. Mm-hmm . That’s a shallow water, uh, uh, wave, uh, program. Um, and this. The National Weather Service has developed a version of SWAN called Near Shore Wave Prediction System. Um, so, there, we’re taking the wave watch, wave energy, [01:00:00] and bringing it to near shore and then transferring it into this near shore, uh, Um, model in, in near shore domain and producing forecast for the near shore coastal zone inside like 50 miles or so.
Chris: Does that start in one part of the state and, and, and no, this is all around the United States. Now they’ve expanded it. Yeah.
Brad: Yeah. It’s incredible.
Chris: For me, just again, on the layman side of things, it’s like, I think of somewhere like Florida. And we’ve got a lot of shallows that go out different parts, right?
Keys don’t really break as well as they could, unless it’s the outside, because there’s just so much shallowness that goes on for a second, that breaks up the actual swell.
Scott: But if you have, uh, well, we have, have a saying in the weather modeling world. Garbage in, garbage out. If the wave energy, that the wave watch model is, is, is forecasting is not correct, then you’re not going to have a correct solution from the nearshore wave prediction system.
It’s got superior physics in it, and it should perform and, and, uh, show the, the wave action, [01:01:00] um, as it, as it occurs naturally in nature, but the wave watch model Although it is a very good model, it has a bias for long period swell. Swell that’s traveling a significant distance, it dampens it out too quickly.
So it’s always low on long period swell.
Brad: I’ve seen that before.
Scott: Um, so, It shows up a little bit bigger on the buoy. If you’re going to the islands and then catch a, to catch some swell, and WaveWatch says it’s going to be 6, 7 foot, it’s probably going to be 8 or 9.
Brad: Right.
Scott: So, Caleb, are we coming on an hour?
Because we’re going to run out of time here. It’s So, that’s something to keep in mind as you use all your various, uh, uh, wave sources. The wave watch model is, is, uh, has a low bias on swell, by a foot or two, unless it gets really big, then maybe two or three feet. Right. So we’re, uh, so, uh, my friend Alex Gibbs, who, uh, worked at the National Weather Service Miami office here.
He was the one that set up the nearshore wave prediction system and it was [01:02:00] running it. Sharp, really sharp guy. He’s now in Honolulu. I know he’s running it. He’s running the wave model out there and I chat with them live in the line every once in a while. Yeah. Why is
Chris: it nice out in Hawaii? I hear, I hear.
Why’d I leave? I’m just kidding. I came back here for the whole
Brad: thing. So yeah, that’s a really, really cool model and it’s actually already on the site. So if you guys want to go look into, um, on the oceanographic of surf science, uh, page, it’s on there. Um, another one that I look at a lot is the ocean prediction center.
Just trying to see what’s going to be happening in the atmosphere. What’s going to be happening, uh, with sea states.
Chris: Ocean Prediction Center, OPC. Those acronym fools out there.
Scott: They’re the equivalent of my office at the Hurricane Center, but they forecast for 30 degrees north, northward. So, we stop off a little bit north of Jacksonville at about 30, 31 north in the Atlantic and OPC is our sister office and they’re [01:03:00] forecasting the open ocean for that area.
So you guys
Brad: are my friend from May through October and they’re my friend for the winter season.
Scott: But there’s no surfers in that office. I’m not going to be able to help you, man. So you got to call me anyway.
Brad: Scott, why are you here? Of course. Um, so, I mean, we’ve been doing this for well over now. This is probably our longest cast.
I think we should probably wrap this thing up. Um, I mean, there’s a lot of information we’ve gone over tonight. It’s so good from, um, to
Chris: watch this over again.
Brad: I know I actually go home actually usually and like sit there and just watch the whole thing again and be like, wow Yeah, that guest had a lot of cool stuff to talk about When I watched the Terry episode myself probably like four times Yeah,
Chris: no, he’s good
Brad: so, um Thanks for joining us.
I’m Brad from Thank You Surfing, Scott
Chris: from Surfrider, Chris from First Surf Shopping,
Brad: and shout out to Caleb for doing all the A. V. stuff tonight. Hopefully this is going to be way better [01:04:00] in quality than we’ve done in the past. And if not, then uh, we’ll try again next time. Thanks for joining. Cheers.