Pacific Beach Pier Surf Stats

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Pacific Beach Pier through a typical June, based on 3026 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Pacific Beach Pier, and at Pacific Beach Pier the best grid node is 32 km away (20 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 11% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pacific Beach Pier and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Pacific Beach Pier, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Pacific Beach Pier run for about 89% of the time.

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