Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Santa Maria Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Santa Maria through an average March and is based upon 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Santa Maria, and at Santa Maria the best grid node is 14 km away (9 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 occurred only 100% 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 commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Santa Maria and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Santa Maria, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Santa Maria run for about 0% of the time.

Also see Santa Maria wind stats

Compare Santa Maria with another surf break

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