Coxos Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Coxos through a typical April. It is based on 3360 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 Coxos. In this particular case the best grid node is 6 km away (4 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 18% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Coxos and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Coxos, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Coxos run for about 82% of the time.

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