App Promises 4-to-6-Foot Sets With “Good Shape”; Ocean Delivers Spiritual Experience of Different Character

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

SANTA MONICA, CA — A formal inquiry conducted by surfers at three Southern California breaks this Memorial Day weekend concluded that Surfline’s forecast for the period was accurate in the general sense that waves did arrive and water was present, while departing from precision in the specific sense that almost none of the other details matched observable reality.

The Forecast: An Optimistic Document

Surfline, which is the dominant surf forecasting platform for the United States and charges a premium subscription for the privilege of its predictions, forecast 4-to-6-foot surf with offshore winds, “good shape,” and a “3 out of 5 star” quality rating for the Huntington Beach area over the Memorial Day weekend. This forecast generated considerable enthusiasm among the several hundred thousand Southern Californians who use the app as the primary basis for deciding whether their weekend will involve the ocean.

The actual conditions at Huntington Beach on Saturday morning were described by participants as “mostly choppy 2-to-3-foot surf with occasional 4-foot sets that arrived at irregular intervals and closed out,” a description that contains some overlap with the forecast in that it acknowledges the existence of waves while differing on their size, shape, frequency, and the wind situation.

A spokesperson for Surfline, which did not actually send a spokesperson, would theoretically explain that surf forecasting involves modeling complex atmospheric and oceanic systems using the best available data, that conditions vary significantly within short distances, and that the gap between forecast and reality represents the irreducible uncertainty of predicting what a large body of water will do over a specific period of time.

The Surfer’s Relationship With Surf Reports

Southern California surfers have a relationship with surf reports that closely resembles the relationship between astrology believers and horoscopes: the information is consulted with genuine interest, selectively interpreted to support conclusions already reached, and never quite blamed for being wrong in a way that reduces future consultation.

“Surfline said it would be good, so I drove from Pasadena,” explained Marcus Chen, 31, standing in a parking lot at 7 a.m. looking at waves that were, in the technical sense, present. “It is what it is.” The phrase “it is what it is,” delivered at dawn by a surfer in a parking lot, is the California coast’s most concentrated unit of philosophical acceptance.

The premium subscription model of surf forecasting, in which users pay for enhanced data, extended forecasts, and additional detail, raises the question of whether more information produces better decisions. The evidence from this weekend suggests that it produces more confidently incorrect decisions, which is a distinct category.

The Stars System: A Meditation

Surfline’s star rating system, which rates surf quality from 1 to 5, is perhaps the most psychologically complex element of the forecasting product. A “3 star” rating suggests moderate quality — not spectacular, but worth going. A “2 star” rating suggests marginal conditions — survivable, perhaps unsatisfying. The gap between forecast stars and experienced stars represents, for many surfers, the emotional core of the weekend.

“I was prepared for a 3,” said Anita Flores, 27, of Redondo Beach, after emerging from a session that she generously rated a “1.5 in person.” “I would have accepted a 2. But I feel like we were working with different definitions of the number 3.”

The National Weather Service, which generates some of the raw data that surf forecasting services use to build their models, does not rate surf quality in stars, which may explain why it also does not generate the same volume of parking-lot disappointment.

Despite all of this, Surfline’s subscriber base continues to grow, which is either evidence of brand loyalty, sunk cost psychology, or the simple fact that there is no better alternative that also includes live camera feeds, crowd counts, and the particular pleasure of watching a camera of your favorite break from your bed at 5:30 a.m. while deciding whether to get up.

Surf forecast satire, Southern California ocean news, and the ongoing inquiry into what a “3 out of 5” actually means: The London Prat.

More recommended: Points in Case and ClickHole.

The Forecast Industry and Its Discontents

Surf forecasting has evolved considerably since the days when surfers relied on visual observation of weather patterns, phone calls to locals at the break, and general coastal intuition developed over years of paying attention. Modern surf forecasting uses buoy data, satellite observations, numerical wave models, and proprietary algorithms to produce predictions that are significantly more accurate than the pre-digital era and significantly more scrutinized because the gap between prediction and reality is now documented in real time by apps on everyone’s phone.

Surfline’s modeling, along with competitors like Magic Seaweed and Windguru, represents genuine technological achievement. The models correctly predict broad swell windows, direction, period, and approximate height with a consistency that would have seemed remarkable 30 years ago. Where they falter is in the local detail — the specific behavior of a wave at a specific break under specific sand and reef conditions — which remains the domain of local knowledge that no algorithm has yet successfully encoded.

The star rating system, which attempts to translate all of this data into a single experiential number, performs the impossible task of predicting how something will feel, which is not a meteorological category. A wave that is objectively 4 feet may feel spectacular to a beginner, tedious to a pro, and somewhere in between to the vast middle of the surfing population, which means the star rating is simultaneously correct and wrong for every subscriber simultaneously. This is not a criticism of Surfline. It is a description of the fundamental challenge of predicting subjective experience, which is what surf forecasting ultimately attempts and what all other forms of forecasting wisely decline to try.

The surfers standing in parking lots at dawn, looking at the water and comparing it to the number of stars they were promised, are conducting a form of empirical science: gathering data, comparing it to a model, noting the discrepancy. The conclusion they reach — “it is what it is” — is perhaps less precise than a confidence interval, but it reflects the same basic intellectual honesty about the limits of prediction that good scientists eventually arrive at after considerably more effort.

Forecast and app satire: Points in Case and ClickHole.

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