"I look back and it wasn't a perfect forecast by any means ..."
The official forecast for the Teahupo’o Olympics, delivered by Surfline, was for unexceptional surf during the entire waiting period. Contestable, sure, but not epic. Then Monday. Head Place came to absolute roaring life, nearly drowning Western Australian hell charger Jack Robinson and deposing recent King of Teahupo’o Filipe Toledo 16 hours after his grand coronation.
Stab Magazine called it “the day that will outlive us all” and Surfer Magazine declared it “Wow bingo bongo. Waves made giant tubulars for to surfers rip the corn hole!”
Surfline clearly whiffing on the call.
Speaking to Reuters, head forecaster Kevin Wallis explained, “I look back and it wasn’t a perfect forecast by any means … but, yeah, under promise, over deliver. That’s always a good rule of thumb in forecasting.”
That’s Surfline’s rule of thumb when it comes to World Surf League forecasts?
Under promise, over deliver?
Well color me code red.
Wallis also opened up about “the toughest job at Teahupo’o” which is forecasting, saying, “My popularity it wanes with how good the waves actually look. But, yeah, everyone’s obviously interested in what the waves were doing over the next few days.”
Everyone except House Toledo (7/28 – 7/29).
Frowny face emoji.
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cobbles have all washed away…The Marines say you recoup your confiscated boards next all coup Friday…tickest ar Nixon/Severson Place…honor the snipers! Corkey Carroll’s…
/puts on tweed jacket with elbow patches: well actually, surfline got the wind forecast wrong, not the swell forecast. And that happened because the numerical models used, ECMWF and GFS, also got the wind forecast wrong. There are physics based reasons for this but it boils down to the atmosphere being harder to predict than swell. Surfline has their own swell model, Lola, originally put together by a true legend in the swell forecasting game bill reilly. But surfline, like everyone else, relies on the supercomputer simulations of the atmosphere run by large government consortiums. The reason surfline sucks is that they have never once, ONCE, acknowledged that their forecasts are based on 1) publically available numerical simulations, that are 2) paid for by all of us, and then they 3) charge people for it. I’ve never seen a single peer reviewed paper that shows Lola having more swell forecast skill than Wave Watch 3, the global standard, run by the US government. And they have never had and will never have their own wind models. So yeah, stormsurf 4 life.
Ya but they have the Stoke Murderer I mean Cam Rewind
Long-time Windguru user here. As far as I understand they’re using the same concept – take publicly-available data and presenting it in their own format. But I’ve found the opposite re wind vs swell predictions. I’m amazed by how accurate and reliable their wind predictions are, usually down to the hour. But swell is hit and miss. Maybe it’s my location, that has more predictable atmospheric patterns than tropical Pacific islands?
PS thanks for paying for my free surf forecasts for all these years.
Wind prediction skill is definitely dependent on location and scenario. The tropics are the toughest region. But if you are on the west coast of South Africa, for example, the winds are dominated by the SE busters and the diurnal cycle (aka sea-breeze), which makes them highly predictable. You are also correct that WindGuru, Windy, and all the others are packaging the models but do not actually run them. It is amazing how few people know this!
Chas was that truly a quote from Surfer magizine. I think they finally hit peak cringe with the help of AI. And I don’t mean the hell raiser we all love.
This is just towering cliffs of stupid.
With that many storms coming through you can’t make any form of reliable prediction for specific wave heights that many weeks away.
Just looking at pressure charts 10 days out it looked like there might be solid waves, and I don’t see how you can be any more confident than might,at that point. There’s no swell forecast model that can magically when storms will appear two weeks hence, over and above a good prediction for the storms themselves.
This sort of reminds me of a much lower stakes version of the sub-prime mortgage crash – as in, “Hey Mr CEO, do you even understand what the things you’re selling actually consist of?”
Yours, etc
Surfline Man
bobba bouy, bobba bouy, babba bouy! (in reference to prank phones calls from Howard Stern clones)
I surfed way more before Surfline.
Sean Collins spinning in his grave, RIP
Nathan Florence forecast that swell.
It was discussed here, with some of us declaring that Florence’s forecast would be more accurate than that ridiculous surfylineguy one…
What does that have to do with Shakira, and how many steps you took today??
Surfline Man should answer for his crimes.