SURFER Forecast Reviews

The older was #1

You bummed out a ton of surfers by removing the original wetsand/swell watch wave animation. That forecast was so simple and accurate that we didn’t need Surfline or others. If you felt the need to create an app you could have left the original wetsand site in place or at least created SURFERForecast to mirror the site - the current wind animation is pointless and your app is overly complicated.

Read the book ‘inspired’ - it’s about product design which starts with the customer. Nobody is asking you to add new features which seems to be your response to the negative feedback. They are telling you exactly what to do if you want to create an app that surfers will use. If you really cared, you would scrap what you’ve done and start over (never easy to do when you’ve already invested time, resources and have some ego attached). You would use the the original wetsand site as inspiration (based on comments everyone loved that site) get a focus group of customers/surfers and determine any areas for improvement from the original site. Then, create some design mockups - I use sketch or balsamic and work with a designer/artist. Demo the mockups to your focus group then begin app creation after you receive positive feedback. Frequently validate your apps features and usability with the focus group before publishing.

Rock on guys and hope you’re catching some waves during these times!

Bummed that Swellwatch is gone and this is the replacement. It’s way more complex to use while being wholly less useful, and the whole “separate report for each spot thing” does little to give you an overall view of what the swell is doing. In Swellwatch you could see charts for a larger region, not just a particular spot, which made it easier to make decisions on where to surf because you could get a general idea of the swells size, direction, etc and the models were relatively consistent and accurate. With this new system swell sizes vary so much from spot to spot without that variance being reflected in the actual conditions of the surf. The written reports were great too in Swellwatch and between those and the charts it was pretty easy to get a good and reliable forecast. It’s a free service and we took Swellwatch for granted I guess, but it would be nice to have something comparable in its place. Hope that the updates make some improvements!

I used swellwatch 3D for close to 20 years, I mostly used it for the swell and wind models and found them to be the best tool for my needs. I do a lot more than just surf in the ocean and utilize the whole shoreline not just the handful of surf spots on my island... I’ve given this new APP a couple months of trying to like it and think some of the features would be useful for some users however I find myself just not knowing information now that used to be easy to have. Very disappointed that swellwatch 3D got taken offline for this new “crAPP” not sure why we couldn’t have had both or have the swell and wind models on SURFERForecast . I miss how easy, fast and clear it was to get a broad overview or location specific information of what the ocean and weather are doing. I will keep SURFERForecast just in hopes that changes are made but I struggle to find it very useful to my needs and continue to mourn the death of one of my best ocean resources...

SURFERForecast falls short of the old Swellwatch website. The information is good, so are the local breaks, etc. But the lack of an animated display showing the swell, period, etc. is really annoying. With the old Swellwatch you could easily see on a map when and where the swell was coming from. With this? Only the wind. Swellwatch had the only good animated interface, and it’s gone. The devs have said that they’re going to add more features, etc. in the future, and I hope that’s one of them. This is still my favorite forecaster, but I would really love to see the features from the website return.

SURFERForecast falls very short of Swellwatch. You cannot see all the data on the screen. Instead, you have to constantly scroll up and down to view wind, swell, and tide. Also, it is clumsy with getting a weekly forecast with one look. Again you have to do a lot of scrolling and hold information in your memory. Swellwatch has everything in one model. It was easy to see swell/wind size, direction, and period for any location in one glance. Breaking the data into different bar graphs is a step backwards for Surfer swell reports.

Please. I loved Swellwatch. This new app seems like a big downgrade. Over the past 20 years I have used as many forecasting services as I can find and swellwatch was always my go-to. Even when I’m simultaneous paying for premium services. All the services give me the info I need but Swellwatch presented in such a concise and easy to access way. I especially loved the charts. The new format is simply not easy to look at. Not easy to get an overview. Swellwatch has always given me the most accurate forecast as well. Not so sure anymore. Tide info is way off this morning.

I want to reinforce the message of another reviewer here. SURFERForecast doesn’t replace or improve what swellwatch was. Where are the easy to visualize tide charts? The wind direction charts? The worldwide swell
maps, where you could zoom in by location? The information was easy to read and accurate. The windy app integration is not as good visually as what you guys had in swellwatch. I rather use windy app separately. What’s the point to have it here? We don’t want the same thing, we want other ways to visualize that information.

I am extremely disappointed

The design of SwellWatch and Nathan’s daily breakdowns kept me coming back to the site, as there just wasn’t another forecasting tool that could beat it. This new app, so far, feels a lot like other forecasting tools, and unfortunately I’m still missing the SwellWatch charts and Nathan’s analysis. Hopefully they’ll bring the design and commentary back, because that is what made the tool stand out from the crowd. As it is now, I can’t see myself reaching for SURFERForecast over the basic Surfline tools.

SURFERForecast is really nice but the older website was what make it unique to all the other surf forecast apps. The one thing you don’t include that is a huge down grade is the over all forecast for a region. You had a 10 day outlook over all. The older site worked better.

Over the years, swellwatch became my go to for looking at the data. Where I live, Surfline literally has no clue. I could predict conditions with FAR more accuracy using swellwatch than by looking at any other site. Where I live, I NEED SWELL ANGLES! Badly!! The difference of 5 degrees can be huge! When swellwatch went offline, I’ve been totally blind, relying on a combination of other sites and tools to piece it all together, but it has been terrible!
Swellwatch was the best! I’m so sad it’s gone

This is a great app for planning a surf trip or just checking out the swell in your neighborhood. You can even check out historical data from previous years for the spots you are interested in. Its great for finding new locations if you are in an unfamiliar area.

Can you change the wind speed back to knots? It’s like changing the tide to meters instead of feet? It wind over the ocean! It needs to be measured in knots! Too much info on the front page. It was so much better to see the wind map first and then find the a spot to zero in on.
Maybe I will get used to it or maybe I just go to another app.

I preferred to use former Swell Watch map of swells over Windy. Is there any way to incorporate the former Swell Watch maps into SURFERForecast? I mean, put both in (Windy and the former Swell Watch maps), but I have a feeling most will use the former maps. I also prefer to use the Windy app over this if the Windy forecast model is what’s being used. Please bring back the former swell maps.

I agree with above review. Loved the detail that Nathan gave and the format that was used. I’ll give this a go, just have to get used to a different format but I’ve noticed already that the tide reading for my area is way off...hope the wave and swell heights are not inaccurate as well

I appreciate the positive responses from the poor sod that has to field all the negative feedback SURFERForecast has garnered. But truthfully I’m not sure how it’s going to be anywhere close to the information that Nathan provided... i trust SURFERForecast will have fixes, but I would have thought that would have been sorted in the beta. You guy did launch a beta, right?

Just downloaded to see the forcecast and SURFERForecast is completely useless. It is not user friendly and shows absolutely no information. The website was great until they turned it into this garbage app that doesn’t work even from the get go.

Why use this new site and app when you can find the same thing - but better on 4-5 other websites and platforms (Surfline). The thing that made this stand out from the pack was Nathan and his detailed written forecasts. Hire and bring him back if you want anyone to use this...

Love all the data, especially when you are planning to travel!

Is there anywhere to access your old charts? This is not user friendly. Not to mention the data isn’t right. Your tide charts were inaccurate this morning. The old adage, “don’t fix it if it’s not broken”? The old swellwatch was the best in the industry at least for Southern California

I love the live wind visuals and ability to set an alert for my fav conditions. Historical data is a great feature! Excited to see the innovation from Surfer.

I used SURFERForecast on the website to plan dive trips but the feature I originally used for is gone. So I check SURFERForecast to see if it has that feature and nope. Don’t fix anything that is not broken.

Cool features, but Nathan was replaced with a boring app.

Water temp reads 47 degrees F, only 12 degrees too low, sign in requires giving up privacy and personal data, info is spotty. I don’t know why they dumped Nathan but I suspect it involved money and or greed. Not for me.

I miss the text of the old Swellwatch report for so cal. It was my go to for years. This is just data and not helpful. Bring back old report

Big step backward from Swellwatch! Where is Nathan’s forecast?? I need an account now so you can sell my data? Surfer is becoming a corporate Goliath. Such a bummer!

This seems cool but I miss Nathan’s detailed reports!

Crap. Bring back the written report. And swell map