Los Organos Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the combination of swells directed at Los Organos over a normal September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Los Organos, and at Los Organos the best grid node is 44 km away (27 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 happened only 17% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Los Organos 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Los Organos, 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 September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Los Organos run for about 83% of the time.

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