Cranberry County: Surf Check: Westport

An absolutely brutal wind was blowing Friday, strong enough to knock power out to 80,000 people. We sent a crew out to check the waves.

The wind was SSW, which eliminated the South Shore from any wave watching consideration.

The South Coast gets the shaft on Nor'easter surf. Even the SSW winds only tune up part of the SC, as Martha's Vineyard blocks or lessens much of the heavier surf.

That leaves us Westport, which the Vineyard doesn't serve as a barricade for. She also is very accessible.

It has been a slow storm season. There hasn't been much in the way of high surf or heavy snow.

We would have gone to Tiverton or Little Compton, which also get high surf with SSW winds. However, it's about a half hour getting from Horseneck Beach to Sakonnet Point, and we didn't have enough sunlight left.

We only consider Rhode Island to be South Coast for this SE Massachusetts website during storms with SSW winds.

There was a nice crowd at Gooseberry Island to check the waves.

I was technically at Gooseberry Neck, as the road was blocked. If I was really motivated, I'd have hoofed it out to the southern shore of Gooseberry Island. It would have been dark by the time I got there, so I just hung at the Neck.

It hasn't happened yet, at least not while I was there with a camera, but Westport is the most likely place to maybe see waves breaking on houses... at least on the South Coast. The SC is more threatened by hurricanes, which don't happen here that much.

You do see houses on stilts from Westport to Wareham, so the SC does get hit. It might be where we set up if a hurricane approached. Nor'easters tend to send our photographers to heavyweights like Duxbury or Eastham.