Burning Palms Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at Burning Palms through a typical October and is based upon 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Burning Palms. In the case of Burning Palms, the best grid node is 35 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast only 14% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Burning Palms and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Burning Palms, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Burning Palms run for about 86% of the time.

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