Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Balnakiel Bay Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Balnakiel Bay through a typical March. It is based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Balnakiel Bay, and at Balnakiel Bay the best grid node is 43 km away (27 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Balnakiel Bay and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Balnakiel Bay, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Balnakiel Bay run for about 79% of the time.

Also see Balnakiel Bay wind stats

Compare Balnakiel Bay with another surf break

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