Rincon - Indicator Surf Stats

The graph describes the range of swells directed at Rincon - Indicator through an average June. It is based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Rincon - Indicator. In this particular case the best grid node is 41 km away (25 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 63% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, 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 dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Rincon - Indicator and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Rincon - Indicator, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Rincon - Indicator run for about 13% of the time.

read more