Cocoa Beach Pier Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Cocoa Beach Pier through a typical July and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Cocoa Beach Pier. In this particular case the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 happened 21% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cocoa Beach Pier and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Cocoa Beach Pier, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Cocoa Beach Pier run for about 0% of the time.

read more