St Augustine Pier Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the variation of swells directed at St Augustine Pier through an average June, based on 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 St Augustine Pier. In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred 19% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from St Augustine Pier and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at St Augustine Pier, you can select a similar diagram 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 surfable waves at St Augustine Pier run for about 81% of the time.

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