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

Western Head Reef Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Western Head Reef over a normal 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 coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Western Head Reef, and at Western Head Reef the best grid node is 14 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 82% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Western Head Reef and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Western Head Reef, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Western Head Reef run for about 6% of the time.

Also see Western Head Reef wind stats

Compare Western Head Reef with another surf break

Nearest
Nearest