The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Manhattan Beach and Pier over a normal northern hemisphere winter, based on 5048 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Manhattan Beach and Pier, and at Manhattan Beach and Pier the best grid node is 44 km away (27 miles).

The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 17% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens.

The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Manhattan Beach and Pier and away from the coast. 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 Manhattan Beach and Pier, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical northern hemisphere winter, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Manhattan Beach and Pier run for about 83% of the time.

IMPORTANT: Beta version feature! Swell heights are open water values from NWW3. There is no attempt to model near-shore effects. Coastal wave heights will generally be less, especially if the break does not have unobstructed exposure to the open ocean.