Home / North Scotland / Murkle Bay

Murkle

★★★★★Fair
Reef break Faces N high tide Offshore South West Best swell North West

Best of the week: Thursday around 09:00, 5–7 ft and offshore.

Surf now4–5ft1.3 m at 11 s from the NW, wind sea 1.2 m from the SE
Wind29mphSE · offshore · gusts 50
Tide 3.1mRising · high 20:17 (4.6 m). Works high tide.

Seven days

best session each day · swipe
Sat
3–4 ft Swell NW 11s Wind 9 mph ★★★★★
Sun
6–8 ft Swell W 5s Wind 14 mph ★★★★★
Mon
4–6 ft Swell NW 9s Wind 24 mph ★★★★★
Tue
5–7 ft Swell W 8s Wind 24 mph ★★★★★
Wed
9–13 ft Swell NW 9s Wind 13 mph ★★★★★
Thu
5–7 ft Swell NW 7s Wind 8 mph ★★★★★
Fri
2–3 ft Swell W 9s Wind 7 mph ★★★★★
Sat 24 Sun 25 Mon 26 Tue 27 Wed 28 Thu 29 Fri 30
Time 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18
Surf ft 3–5 5–7 6–8 16–21 36–47 35–45 13–18 10–13 8–10 6–9 5–7 1–2 1–2 1–2 1–2 4–6 9–12 9–12 10–14 7–10 8–11 6–8 5–7 5–7 4–5 3–4 2–3 2–3 2–3 2–3 2–3
Swell 11s 14s 6s 9s 12s 12s 11s 9s 9s 9s 9s 3s 4s 4s 5s 8s 8s 7s 9s 7s 6s 7s 7s 7s 7s 7s 8s 9s 9s 10s 10s
Wind mph 22 27 22 38 42 40 14 11 11 12 24 20 32 28 30 24 15 13 13 15 11 10 8 16 14 17 15 11 7 6 5
Tide m 3.5↑ 3.9↑ 4.2↓ 1.9↓ 1.4↑ 3.9↑ 3.4↑ 4.6↓ 2.3↓ 0.9↑ 3.4↑ 2.8↑ 4.8↓ 2.9↓ 0.8↓ 2.6↑ 2.1↑ 4.7↑ 3.6↓ 1.0↓ 1.8↑ 1.6↑ 4.2↑ 4.1↓ 1.5↓ 1.3↑ – – – – –
Rating ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

Surf is the face height at the beach after the swell is filtered for the way Murkle faces. Arrows point to where the swell and wind come from: an arrow pointing up means from the north. Tide is the height at Scrabster above chart datum, rising ↑ or falling ↓; the rating drops when the tide is outside the window this break works on. Amber marks the sessions worth setting an alarm for. From Tuesday the swell comes from Météo-France's 10-day model, which is coarser than the 5 km German model used close in. Hours no model reaches are left blank, not shown as flat.

Exposure

Murkle faces north. Measured from the seabed, it is open to swell from W round to N; the brighter a wedge, the deeper the water in that direction and the more of the swell gets in. Anything from behind the headlands scores nothing, however big the buoy says it is.

NESWfaces NNWSE
NW
1.3 m at 11 s (swell) · 100 % reaches the beach
SE
1.2 m at 3 s (wind sea) · 1 % reaches the beach

How Murkle works

Swell
Best from the north west.
Wind
Offshore is from the south west; anything with north in it is onshore and messes it up.
Tide
high tide.
Getting there
inbetween Thurso and John o'Groats on the a836

Left hand reef break running when thurso east is big.. can see it from the main road.

Tide times

  • Sat 20:17High4.6 m
  • Sun 01:35Low0.8 m
  • Sun 07:45High4.6 m
  • Sun 13:56Low1.1 m
  • Sun 19:54High4.8 m
  • Mon 02:12Low0.6 m
  • Mon 08:21High4.7 m
  • Mon 14:34Low0.9 m

Scrabster station, 7 km away. Heights above chart datum, UK time.

Photos

In the gallery
North eastern part of The Spur at Dunnet Bay - geograph.org.uk - 5438951 View to Murkle Bay - geograph.org.uk - 6774311

John Ferguson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. thejackrustles, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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