An online marine forecasting service developed by South African surfers has been launched for recreational and professional users of the beach and ocean.
The system, which forecasts swell, surf and wind conditions up to seven days in advance, is the first of its kind in South Africa.
Wavescape Ocean Watch (WOW) publishes information on swell height and interval, wind speed and direction, sun and moon phase, tides and water temperatures for regional and specific locations around 3,600km of coastline.
The WOW pages on Wavescape.co.za have been a hit with surfers and other ocean users around South Africa, receiving 100,000 page impressions in the first month.
“The unique power of WOW,” says Steve Pike, otherwise known as Spike, a surf forecaster who works with surfing events such as Red Bull Big Wave Africa, “is that it refines raw open-ocean data – a generic set of variables from ocean modelling systems – to deliver information specific to South Africa.”
“We publish sea state information for 34 places on the coast, taking into account the angle of the coast to the direction of the swell, and the energy of the swell. We filter out obstacles such as headlands or points, and calculate how far the swell must refract to reach a point, bay or beach break.
“This gives an accurate picture of the surf that will result, which is a great tool for people seeking local conditions,” says Spike.
Piet Streicher, a surfer and windsurfer with a PhD in engineering, heads up BulkSMS.com who partnered with Wavescape on the project. Streicher was instrumental in building the complex mathematical formulae that drive the service.
“This inshore forecasting is unique as other existing swell services only report general open ocean swell conditions.
“Although the WOW model is automated, Spike used his many years of surf forecasting experience to calibrate the system. The result is a very accurate surf forecasting system,” says Streicher.
Steven Weiss, a South African surfer and software developer, designed and built the system to convert raw data and apply formulae into a XML files used by clients to publish the information in the format of their choice including SMS, charts, graphics and tables.
“We publish our own version of the data. Wavescape has animated graphics, tables and bar graphs,” says Spike.
