Pensacola Beach Pier Surf Stats
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![](/graphs/statistics/Pensacola-Beach-Pier.surf.statistics.march.gif)
![](/graphs/statistics/SSE.animated.gif)
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This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Pensacola Beach Pier over a normal March, based on 3212 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Pensacola Beach Pier. In the case of Pensacola Beach Pier, the best grid node is 50 km away (31 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened 45% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pensacola Beach Pier and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Pensacola Beach 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 March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Pensacola Beach Pier run for about 55% of the time.