Playa Santa Catalina Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the range of swells directed at Playa Santa Catalina over a normal April and is based upon 3360 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Playa Santa Catalina. In the case of Playa Santa Catalina, the best grid node is 74 km away (46 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 0% of the time. Green and yellow represent 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 occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Santa Catalina and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Playa Santa Catalina, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Playa Santa Catalina run for about 100% of the time.

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