Isla Vista Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Isla Vista through a typical April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Isla Vista. In this particular case the best grid node is 47 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 20% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Isla Vista and offshore. 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 good for surfing at Isla Vista, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Isla Vista run for about 58% of the time.

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