Santa Maria Rivermouth Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the combination of swells directed at Santa Maria Rivermouth through a typical August and is based upon 3472 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 best grid node based on what we know about Santa Maria Rivermouth. In this particular case the best grid node is 32 km away (20 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 happened only 50% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, 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 biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Santa Maria Rivermouth and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Santa Maria Rivermouth, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Santa Maria Rivermouth run for about 50% of the time.

read more