San Carlos Point Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at San Carlos Point through an average November. It is based on 3347 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about San Carlos Point. In the case of San Carlos Point, the best grid node is 50 km away (31 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast 9% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from San Carlos Point 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at San Carlos Point, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at San Carlos Point run for about 1.0% of the time.

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