Sunset Beach Swell Window
Hawaii, USA · part of the Sunset Beach spot guide
- Swell window (from)
- 270°–30° (W–NNE)
- Best direction
- ~315° (NW)
- Period sweet spot
- 13–18 s
- Open-ocean height (Hs)
- 4–20 ft
- Resulting faces
- 6–30 ft
Open-ocean vs. the face: the heights on buoys and forecast models are significant wave height (Hs) in deep water. What you ride is the breaking face, which depends on period, direction and this break's bathymetry — that's why the two rows above differ. PierMonkey's spot ratings already do this conversion for you.
The window wraps through north — from west through northwest and north to north-northeast — with the productive core in the northwest quadrant, ideal around 315 to 320°. Pure west energy comes in more sideways and tends to shadow sections and strengthen the rip. It wants long-period groundswell, 14 seconds and up for organised, powerful Sunset, while short-period wind swell makes it disorganised and bumpy.
The buoy height and the breaking face are separate numbers, and the local report is a third: a long-period northwest swell of a few feet of buoy height pushes into a much bigger, thicker face, which the Hawaiian scale then reports at roughly half again. Read the local scale and the current, not just the height.