El Carmel Point Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at El Carmel Point through a typical May and is based upon 2838 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about El Carmel Point. In the case of El Carmel Point, the best grid node is 34 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 73% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Carmel Point and offshore. 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at El Carmel Point, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at El Carmel Point run for about 27% of the time.

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