3/13/14 Post - Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions Rating Increased One Notch.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

I warned this morning that there was a nice stiff wind coming from the North, and it might be worth taking a look to see what was happening to the beach.  The river is not a great predictor of what is happening at the beach, but it does give some information.

Well, based upon the wind and what I saw on the river, I went to the beach, and here are a couple of photos showing what I saw.

This Morning Just Before Low Tide.

This cut around two feet high or less.

Looking the other direction at the same beach, the cut was slightly bigger, for a good distance being about three feet high.

The surf, as you can see on the third picture wasn't that big.  I would guess that it was in the three or four foot range.  That certainly isn't a lot and it isn't the kind of wave size that people usually expect to create much in the way of cuts.

The erosion was very much to the East, on the very front of the beach.  That is the result of the small tides and three to four foot surf.

The cuts from some time back were maybe nearly thirty or more yards farther back on the beach.  You could still see some remains of some of those previous cuts.

This cut ran more or less continuously for probably two miles.

The beach in front of the cut, what there was of it, was relatively compact.   There were some small metal targets.  I'll show one or more after I get them tested.

At another beach a few miles farther south, there were no cuts, so don't expect every beach to have cuts, but some will.  You'll have to check around.

Two To Three Foot Cut Before Low Tide.

The wind was still brisk, and as happens when you get a North wind, the water was slicing away at the front of the beach, and that is why there were cuts.

Some people talk as though it is all about big waves, but the angle is just as important as wave size.

There also seemed to be a dip in front of the cuts in the shallow water.  That is another factor.  The sand bars were out a good piece.

Notice the curve to the beach in the above photo.  That is another important factor that contributes to the slicing angle of the waves here.

Waves Breaking On Front of Beach In Front of Cuts.

I might be slightly generous in my rating here, but I'm going to upgrade my beach detecting conditions scale to a 2.  Maybe it should be more like a 1.5.  Nonetheless I think it is the most improvement in conditions that I've seen for a while.

 
Conditions have been so consistently poor lately that I have been seldom giving a numeric beach conditions rating.  I therefore need to explain my rating scale for those who haven't been reading this blog for a long time.

The rating scale is a five point scale, with one indicating poor beach detecting conditions and 5 indicating excellent beach detecting conditions.

The conditions we had back in November when a good number of cobs were found rated as high as a 3, or maybe even a 4 for a short time, on my rating scale.  I think I was a little conservative on that one.  Anyhow, that gives you some sense of what the ratings mean without getting too complicated.

I'm glad to see some cuts for a change anyway.  2014 had been pretty slow.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

Prepost posted earlier today.

This is not my post for the day.  The wind picked up and was coming from the North so I wanted to let you know.

This isn't my post for the day, and this isn't the ocean.  It is the river.  You can see a good number of white caps.  I haven't seen the ocean yet today.  So later I'll have my actual post for you.

The surf is only supposed to be about four feet so I'm not expecting much, but I do want to check it out later.