Surf Data 5 - Regional Analysis

This is the fifth installment of the 'Surf Data' series; we will be examining the breakdown across regions.

This data dates back to February 2017, and as of today (August 18th, 2025), there are over 1,700+ surf session entries in the dataset. 

I have recently formalized my code into a Python package (see the repo here)!

Regions Surfed by Hours and Time

See the figure below for (relative) hours spent in the water per region. Note, "Other" includes any surf spot not located within California or Hawaii.

Surfing Time of Day Across Regions

Since 2021, I have been recording the time of day for each session into 4 main groups. I thought it would be interesting to see the time of day surfing across regions. I hypothesized that certain locations have better surf in the morning and some locations have better surf in the evening. For example, both Santa Cruz (spots in town) and Hawaii have conditions that usually get better throughout the day. But after reviewing the data, it doesn't seem that I necessarily follow the patterns of 'good' conditions.

Lastly, please see the surfboard analysis for the breakdown of each surfboard used per region.

And that's currently it for the region-based analysis. As of today (Aug 18th, 2025), I am working on a geo-spatial analysis of the data. Updates coming soon!

Thanks for reading, 

-Garrett