Oxnard Shores Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the range of swells directed at Oxnard Shores over a normal November, based on 2867 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Oxnard Shores, and at Oxnard Shores the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 10% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Oxnard Shores and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Oxnard Shores, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Oxnard Shores run for about 21% of the time.

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