Bradley Beach Surf Stats

This image describes the combination of swells directed at Bradley Beach over a normal November. It is based on 3346 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Bradley Beach, and at Bradley Beach the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 were forecast 41% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the dominant 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 Bradley Beach and out to sea. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Bradley Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Bradley Beach run for about 59% of the time.

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