Fistral Beach • Statistics for October

October: Autumn Roars Back

The North Atlantic roars back to life in October, and Fistral Beach is directly in the firing line. Average swell height jumps to 1.6m (5.2ft) and period to 10.3s, but the character of the month is defined by the first serious extratropical storms of autumn. These lows deepen quickly southwest of Iceland and send long-period W and WNW groundswell marching into Cornwall. W alone supplies 37.5% of the swell, with WSW and WNW adding another 27.9%, so there is always something to surf. Unlike midwinter, the wind is slightly more favorable: southwesterly winds are common, but east and SSE offshore flow appears often enough to push the ideal-surf percentage to 24%. Air temperature cools to 13.1°C, the water is still a mild 14.9°C, and rainfall begins to climb at 3.70 mm/day. This is the classic month when autumn's first true swells start showing up before dawn.