5th and 7th Streets Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at 5th and 7th Streets over a normal May, based on 2944 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about 5th and 7th Streets, and at 5th and 7th Streets the best grid node is 40 km away (25 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 occurred only 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was E, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from 5th and 7th Streets and away from the coast. 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 good for surfing at 5th and 7th Streets, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at 5th and 7th Streets run for about 87% of the time.

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