Nimitz Beach Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Nimitz Beach over a normal June and is based upon 2786 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Nimitz Beach, and at Nimitz Beach the best grid node is 34 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 29% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the 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 prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was S, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Nimitz Beach 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Nimitz Beach, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Nimitz Beach run for about 71% of the time.

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