Coastal watch, swellnet, check weather maps as well to work out wind direction and speed. Plus gut instinct as well.

www.bom.gov.au/marine/

Down my way I look at mostly BoM Marine, the very local Black Rock Yacht Club weather pages (when they're up) and Seabreeze (in that order), and ....and then maybe..just maybe...if I'm lucky, I might get what I think I'm going to get.

Check Seabreeze more than a couple of times a day to make sure I don't get any surprises while out. Check the swell at Cronulla twice a day and look at the trees at the back of my house before I go. Chances are, I'll go no matter what, but it gives me an idea of which board I'll need and where to ge in.
No substitute for being outside to know what the weather is doing.

I agree with Greenroom - the synoptic chart was all we used back before the interweb.

Local surf webcams, weather map and the wind tree up the street. If its shaking I'm packing the windsurf gear - if not the SUP and shorty are in the car - if its borderline the whole lot gets loaded

A lot of the weather reports locally don't take into account local wind effects and tidal swell surges / pulses etc - and some of the recorders are so far from the beach that they do not reflect whats happening on the water - gaining some local knowledge about wind patterns, tidal influences season by season where your heading certainly helps

You gotta love looking at all the forecasts and planning your week on a each evening


Add this one to your list - great wind stats

just click on Aust and update your local breaks.

wisuki.com/forecast/4933/elliston

Brilliant - thanks all

laurie said...
We've got an iPhone app out now too (Android coming)

$1.99:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/seabreeze/id510545941

or Free (with support from sponsors)
itunes.apple.com/au/app/seabreeze-free/id571581320?mt=8






Greenroom is bang on about reading syntopic .. a useful skill that takes moments to learn (this article is about looking for wind, so reverse the concept when reading! ... www.seabreeze.com.au/info/wind.asp)

(A tip: when viewing the graphs, you can click on the 7 day forecast on any of the weather pages to take you though to the synoptic charts, for that 'extra insight')

When is that graph for Laurie 5m + swell would be awesome