Surf Forecast Surf Report
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
  • Country flag icon
app storeplay store

Cape Lookout Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at Cape Lookout through a typical March, 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Cape Lookout, and at Cape Lookout the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 1.8% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cape Lookout and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Cape Lookout, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Cape Lookout run for about 98% of the time.

Also see Cape Lookout wind stats

Compare Cape Lookout with another surf break

Nearest
Nearest