6th Street Surf Stats

The figure shows the range of swells directed at 6th Street over a normal June. It is based on 2786 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 6th Street. In the case of 6th Street, the best grid node is 40 km away (25 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 97% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from 6th Street and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at 6th Street, 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 good for surfing waves at 6th Street run for about 3% of the time.

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