Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Santa Cruz Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture describes the variation of swells directed at Santa Cruz over a normal March, based on 3460 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 best grid node based on what we know about Santa Cruz. In the case of Santa Cruz, the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 10% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Santa Cruz and away from the coast. 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Santa Cruz, you can view an alternative 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 clean enough to surf waves at Santa Cruz run for about 90% of the time.

Also see Santa Cruz wind stats

Compare Santa Cruz with another surf break

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