When is it too rough on the Gulf?

[racedude1984]

I happen to be on the west coast his weekend (ST Pete Beach) and the gulf is as flat as can be. It's veru windy, but flat and still warm. I imagine that Venice being just a little bit south can't be all that bad.

was really nice today, flat seas most of the day. Winds made for a interesting swim in for my novice diver buddy (wife). We plan on hitting up Bradenton beach tommorow to check out the sugar barge and pick up some sand dollars.

 

[Missdirected]

was really nice today, flat seas most of the day. Winds made for a interesting swim in for my novice diver buddy (wife). We plan on hitting up Bradenton beach tommorow to check out the sugar barge and pick up some sand dollars.

How was your viz RD? Get any good finds?

 

[racedude1984]

How was your viz RD? Get any good finds?

viz was 2-3' just past the no swim markers but cleared up to 6-7' in deeper water. No finds I took my wife out for her first time outside of class so we worked on keeping her off the bottom and what not. Seen alot of fish and shells. No teeth thou.

 

[Jupiter31]

Jupiter31, I'm already using Marine Forecast, but how did you get to the Small craft advisory?

This is the website I use - its "set" to Miami/SE FL, but if you click on other areas, you get the forecast for that area too -

You can also put in a city on the upper left side of the screen to get the forecast for that area

www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/


A couple of points - we do a lot of diving in the Miami area from our own boat so we monitor the weather pretty closely - the however is:

Its really tough to get an accurate "near shore" forecast, especially in the upper Key's - but if they say its blowing 15 - 20 from the north, or the northeast, I can tell that even 1 - 3 miles offshore, never mind being 15 miles out in the gulfstream, its likely to ne uncomfortable.

Conversely, the same wind speed from the south west, or even south east will not be a problem.

Sometimes, you just have to give it a shot - been surprised both ways many times over the years.

The noaa web site is a good one to have

 

[cloudswinger]

A couple of points - we do a lot of diving in the Miami area from our own boat so we monitor the weather pretty closely - the however is:

Its really tough to get an accurate "near shore" forecast, especially in the upper Key's - but if they say its blowing 15 - 20 from the north, or the northeast, I can tell that even 1 - 3 miles offshore, never mind being 15 miles out in the gulfstream, its likely to ne uncomfortable.

I don't know if this helps in the Keys, but we watch the surf reports. Surfers are very interested in the near shore forecasts. And if there are waves on shore, it's probably rough inshore, but that can depend on whether it's local winds or long range events.

for se florida one of the sites we use is Dade County Surf Forecast - South Florida Surfing - Beach Webcams for Miami Dade Beaches

Here's one for venice: Venice Beach Surf Report, Surf Forecast and Surf Webcams

It's got a lot of the important information concisely placed, as opposed to noaa, where it's kind of all over the place.

 

[soamelt]

I'd like to add that I find beach cams to be very helpful. I'm sorry, I'm an East coaster so I don't have the links for the ones in your area, but I'm sure someone will be along to share some soon.

For example, the Fort Lauderdale beach cam is at Live Fort Lauderdale Web Cam - Fort Lauderdale CVB

Obviously we're not going out today.

The webcams do take some getting used to though. 5' swells do look pretty diveable from a hundred or so yards away, on an angle, on low resolution. In fact, I checked earlier today when it the marine forecast was calling for 5-7 and it almost looked diveable once you got passed the first 25 yards of whitewater. Although having a good idea what 2-3 and 3-5, etc look on the webcam, combined with the marine forecast and knowing 20 knot winds 8 miles west of the beach coming off the east is bad, you can get a pretty good idea of what it's like ot there.

 

[DebbyDiver]

Jenny, you might be referring to a planned kayak dive that turned into an attempt at kayak surfing that turned into "what the heck let's have beer and wings" night, right?

 

[Danzebub]

Thanks Jupiter, I've also found out, similar to what your saying that it's best to have winds blowing out instead of in to the beach. For the Gulf, from the NE or E is preferred

 

[lowviz]

..... For the Gulf, from the NE or E is preferred

TODAY
NE WINDS 35 TO 40 KT WITH GUSTS UP TO 55 KT. SEAS 14 TO 20
FT. RAIN.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Morning news reports local fishermen missing.

 

[soamelt]

Another thing, all should be taken with a grain of salt. I used to plan my dives around the marine forecast and missed out on a lot of good days because of it. Our SE forecast is 3-5 right now, but you can look at the webcam and see it's as flat as can be right now.