Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Malibu Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The graph describes the range of swells directed at Malibu through a typical March and is based upon 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Malibu, and at Malibu the best grid node is 29 km away (18 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 5% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Malibu 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 good for surfing at Malibu, 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 March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Malibu run for about 95% of the time.

Also see Malibu wind stats

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