Curral Joul Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Curral Joul over a normal June. It is based on 2786 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Curral Joul. In this particular case the best grid node is 25 km away (16 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 88% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Curral Joul and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Curral Joul, 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 June, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Curral Joul run for about 12% of the time.

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