Chinamans Surf Stats

This image shows the range of swells directed at Chinamans through a typical June and is based upon 3266 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Chinamans, and at Chinamans the best grid node is 42 km away (26 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 58% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Chinamans and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Chinamans, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Chinamans run for about 42% of the time.

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