Santa Monica Ocean Park Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Santa Monica Ocean Park through an average September and is based upon 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Santa Monica Ocean Park, and at Santa Monica Ocean Park the best grid node is 47 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 1.9% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Santa Monica Ocean Park and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Santa Monica Ocean Park, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Santa Monica Ocean Park run for about 98% of the time.

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