San Diego beaches are 33-50 feet wider than normal due to a lack of strong winter storms, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography says in a report released Tuesday.

The region usually gets large waves out of the north-northwest that cut into the coastline and carry sand offshore, producing bars that are pushed back to the beach in the summer months. But that was mostly missing this winter, which ends on Friday.

"Wave heights at the Scripps Torrey Pines offshore buoy never exceeded 10 feet and only two seven feet for about 40 hours, compared with 190 hours an average winter," Scripps graduate student Sean Crosby said in a statement. "The few high waves that did occur coincided with lower-range neap tides, minimizing shoreline erosion."

Adam Wright, founder and chief forecaster at Solspot.com, noticed the same thing.

"We've been missing that steady north-northwest wind we get in the winter," Wright said. "We've had a lot of Santa Anas, which has sent the winds offshore. And the storms we got in December produced a lot of rain but not a lot of winds that would have moved sand off the beaches."

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Mild winter spares San Diego beaches