Surf Forecast Surf Report
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La Costa Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at La Costa over a normal March. It is based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about La Costa, and at La Costa the best grid node is 42 km away (26 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 represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These were forecast only 0% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from La Costa and away from the coast. We lump these in 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 La Costa, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at La Costa run for about 97% of the time.

Also see La Costa wind stats

Compare La Costa with another surf break

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