And, this is why I started to recognize some patterns, and some odd things about the forecasts.

First, it's important to understand the context. If you look at surf-forecast websites, they give you a table with a bunch of data: wave height, period, energy, wind, direction, tide, etc. This is great data, but it does not constitute a "surf forecast", and is difficult to read for beginners. This is problem #1.

Second, in my area, there are two beaches, right next to each other: one has a big stone pier, on the north side, which protects it from a lot of the incoming waves, as well as from the northern wind. The second beach, has no such pier, and so has completly different qualities when it comes to surf. However, the "surf-forecast" is the same for both these beaches. This is problem #2.

In short: predicting the real "surf conditions" from a "surf forecast" is not a simple thing.

So, this is why I decided to build a website to help me save time, and to hopefully help others too. The website basically does three things:

it takes the weather forecast (the raw data usually displayed in tables, I mentioned above)

it takes some internal rules, that define what "good" surf conditions are;

it uses this data to "calculate" a simple recommendation: "go" surf (or not) (technically, it also tries to rate the surf quality from 1/5, and suggest the best time to go surf, based on the conditions, but you get the point).

So, after a good week of working on this every day, with obviously a lot of help from Claude and Gemini, I am happy to share the result.

It's definitely still a work in progress, and I hope to work it (or at least maintain it) for a long period of time (hopefully, I will get to surf many years!), so please, if you have any feedback, be it positive or negative, I am happy to hear!

https://surf-alert.net

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50013728

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