Corona Del Mar Jetty Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at Corona Del Mar Jetty 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 coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Corona Del Mar Jetty. In this particular case the best grid node is 16 km away (10 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 4% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Corona Del Mar Jetty and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Corona Del Mar Jetty, you can load a different image 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 clean enough to surf waves at Corona Del Mar Jetty run for about 3% of the time.

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