Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Gray Whale Cove Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture shows the range of swells directed at Gray Whale Cove through a typical March. It is based on 3418 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Gray Whale Cove, and at Gray Whale Cove the best grid node is 7 km away (4 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 5% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Gray Whale Cove and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Gray Whale Cove, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Gray Whale Cove run for about 95% of the time.

Also see Gray Whale Cove wind stats

Compare Gray Whale Cove with another surf break

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