Sunset Beach Surf Stats

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Sunset Beach over a normal May and is based upon 3430 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Sunset Beach, and at Sunset Beach the best grid node is 48 km away (30 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 1.1% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sunset Beach 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 clean enough to surf at Sunset Beach, 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 surfable waves at Sunset Beach run for about 98% of the time.

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