Imperial Beach Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the range of swells directed at Imperial Beach through an average May, based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Imperial Beach. In the case of Imperial Beach, the best grid node is 36 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 7% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest 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 was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Imperial Beach and away from the coast. We combine these 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 good for surfing at Imperial Beach, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Imperial Beach run for about 93% of the time.

read more