Surf City Pier Surf Stats

The graph describes the combination of swells directed at Surf City Pier through an average June. It is based on 3266 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 best grid node based on what we know about Surf City Pier. In this particular case the best grid node is 51 km away (32 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 occurred only 32% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Surf City Pier and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Surf City Pier, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Surf City Pier run for about 68% of the time.

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