Registered or Premium Member? LOG IN  |  Not a Premium Member? TRY PREMIUM FREE NOW 
--->

(Previous) 01/18/2005 (Next)
Winter Swells Steamroll the N. Pacific.
The North Pacific has seen a steady run of storm action pushing off of Asia and kicking up surf from Hawaii to California and all the way down to Central America.
Continued below...
Using the LOLA Global Wave Heights you can track these swells pretty easily. Normally a global wave model (like Wavewatch III) has all of the wave heights presented at the same time, which can be very confusing and misleading when you have a mix of super-short period swell overlapping a deeper and more powerful long-period swell. LOLA has a great feature, which allows you to filter out energy below certain periods and focus on more important things…like surf-generating long-period ground swells.

The LOLA animation above is using a "13-second and above" filter, which removes all of the fluff wave-energy from 12-seconds on down to 0, leaving us with the deepwater wave heights that will be generating most of the good surf. A good thing to have when you are watching to see how much "swell" a storm will be sending your way.

Like what you see here? Want to get this type of detailed forecast information on a daily basis, for every major surf region on earth? Then SIGN UP NOW for a Surfline Premium Membership. (First month's free.)

WHAT IS LOLA?

LOLA is the world's only automated global surf forecasting tool. LOLA can forecast waves right down the street, or it can predict surf conditions at the top spots around the globe - breaks like Tavarua, Tahiti and Jeffrey's Bay.

LOLA uses the NOAA Wavewatch III engine (running on our own computers) with Surfline-modified data from various wind models (AVN, GFS, MRF). Then LOLA combines this information with empirical data we've programmed into her gained from over 30 years of surf and weather analysis here at Surfline.

LOLA also gathers real-time data from offshore buoys to measure wave pulses from storms around the world every hour. She taps into orbiting satellites to measure hurricane-force winds and tremendous wave heights in the heart of raging storms when huge ships are running for cover. She computes near-shore wave animations measuring detailed wave heights along the coast, taking into account how swells are distorted by offshore islands and the continental shelf.

When you add it all up, LOLA is the ultimate forecasting tool for surfers looking for timely, accurate and comprehensive information about waves.

Initially, we created LOLA as a proprietary tool for Surfline forecasters. But we decided to share the knowledge and give Surfline's Premium Members the chance to use LOLA themselves, to give them the best chance to score more good surf more often.

Not a Premium Member? Then CLICK HERE for a free LOLA demo.

If you are already a Premium Member, please proceed straight to the LOLA home page.