San Diego County : Winter Waves and Beaches Outlook

Winter Beach Erosion Outlook   •   Winter Waves Outlook




The Winter Waves Outlook is based on a 42-year (1979-2020) hindcast of the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) vs. local winter wave height anomalies.

High wave event conditions are represented by the 90th quantile of significant wave heights (Hs) in a given month. Hs is the average height of the one-third highest waves in a given hour. Probabilities are the probability of exceedance (POE) of:

An ensemble of the latest ONI forecasts for the upcoming Nov-Mar winter months, aggregated by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, is used to seed the probabilistic model of monthly mean significant wave heights.

This outlook is updated monthly from mid-September through mid-December following the mid-monthly update of the ONI forecast ensemble.