magic seaweed swell vs BWE cam

[old_rookie]

Checking out the report for LJ on MSW - right now, 3pm, it is about 4.5ft.
Looking at the wave height at the beach, it seems much smaller than I would expect with a swell of 4.5ft - but since no one is out there, I could be off without a reference. Do the waves crashing have no connection to the swell height? Seems to me there isn't.

[chris138]

Surf reports are usually for up the beach toward SIO. The reason those swells aren't breaking at the launch is the short period/interval. If it was 4.5 ft at 15 seconds, it would be a whole different scenerio. Long interval will wrap but short interval refracts.