Surf Forecast Surf Report
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China Beach Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at China Beach through a typical March. It is 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 China Beach, and at China Beach the best grid node is 67 km away (42 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 30% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from China Beach and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at China Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at China Beach run for about 64% of the time.

Also see China Beach wind stats

Compare China Beach with another surf break

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