Rancho Santini Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Rancho Santini over a normal July, based on 3720 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 Rancho Santini, and at Rancho Santini the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 64% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the most common 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 Rancho Santini and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Rancho Santini, 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 July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Rancho Santini run for about 36% of the time.

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