Surf Forecast Surf Report
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
app storeplay store

Santa Cruz Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture describes the range of swells directed at Santa Cruz through a typical March, based on 3460 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 Santa Cruz, and at Santa Cruz the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast 21% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Santa Cruz and offshore. We group these 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 Santa Cruz, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Santa Cruz run for about 79% of the time.

Also see Santa Cruz wind stats

Compare Santa Cruz with another surf break

Nearest
Nearest