Sunset State Beach Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at Sunset State Beach over a normal August, based on 3472 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 Sunset State Beach. In the case of Sunset State Beach, the best grid node is 46 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 34% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either 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 longest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sunset State Beach and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Sunset State Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Sunset State Beach run for about 66% of the time.

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