Transect Bearing

Transect bearing is the compass direction a surf spot faces toward the open ocean, measured perpendicular to the shoreline. Swell Intel assigns a transect bearing to every spot and uses it in three ways. First, it filters which swell directions can actually produce waves there — a spot with a 180° transect (facing due south) receives energy from SW through SE swells but nothing from the north. Second, it is used to classify wind as offshore, onshore, or cross-shore. Third, it controls how our bathymetry models refract and shoal swell energy into the break. Getting the transect right is critical — a bad transect will produce a forecast that looks plausible but will never match what you see at the beach.