San Gregorio State Beach Surf Stats

This image describes the variation of swells directed at San Gregorio State Beach over a normal June and is based upon 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about San Gregorio State Beach. In the case of San Gregorio State Beach, the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast only 55% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from San Gregorio State Beach 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 good for surfing at San Gregorio State Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at San Gregorio State Beach run for about 45% of the time.

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