13th Ave South Surfside Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at 13th Ave South Surfside through an average August. It is based on 3471 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about 13th Ave South Surfside. In this particular case the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast 25% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from 13th Ave South Surfside and out to sea. 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 13th Ave South Surfside, 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 August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at 13th Ave South Surfside run for about 75% of the time.

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