Surf Report 9/9/08
Upham Beach 9:30am: No surf. Conditions are still flat. Looking for Hurricane Ike to start its push. Looks like again we will have offshore winds that will cause some clean conditions. Only issue I have with that is that the window of opportunity for surf is going to be small like we had with Dolly. I think the push will begin mid to late Wednesday and into Thursday. Hope we get some good swell filling in before that, but it is a wait and see. As always with this scenario, it will sneak up on us. It will be flat and then all of the sudden start to build to near waist high. Ike is a Cat 1 expected to build to a Cat 2 today.
Hurricane Gustav Synopsis
Well, like Dolly (Unlike Fay) we had some good surf for an extended amount of time. Hurricane Gustav surf showed up small on Saturday night and held through Tuesday afternoon. It seemed like no surf really got to us until the storm center was about due west of us in the Gulf of Mexico.
With the storm reaching Category 3 strength south of us I thought we would be in for some overhead conditions but they never really got that big at Upham Beach. Though there were some larger waves breaking out beyond the pass. A report from Jorge Pagan in Bradenton was that surf did reach 1-2 feet overhead down there on Sunday afternoon but the biggest waves in St. Pete were probably in the chest high range.
Surf Report 8/29/08
Upham Beach 9:45am: Surf is flat, expecting that push from now Tropical Storm Gustav to be here possibly late Sunday or Monday. The size and quality will all depend on how quickly it strengthens and how close it passes to us. If Dolly told us anything at all, then we are setting up for some good surf in the waist-shoulder range. I bet it will get bigger than that though as this should be stronger and closer. We will report as more news becomes available.
Surf Report 7/22/08 #2
Upham Beach 12:15pm: Surf is here, knee to thigh maybe at Upham. Down south it is clean and good so head south if you can! Chest to Shoulder reports near Sarasota/Venice. Sneaky ground swell, hopefully it will hang around. Good clean stuff too I hope since Dolly didn’t pass too close. Don’t follow the wave models!!!
Dolly is slowly strengthening, right now it is at 70mph winds.