Brighton Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Brighton through an average August. It is based on 3574 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 Brighton. In the case of Brighton, the best grid node is 14 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 only 37% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was S, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Brighton 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Brighton, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Brighton run for about 38% of the time.

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