Malibu Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Malibu over a normal July and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Malibu. In this particular case the best grid node is 29 km away (18 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 3% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Malibu and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Malibu, you can load a different image 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 good for surfing waves at Malibu run for about 97% of the time.

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