Kamala Beach Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the range of swells directed at Kamala Beach through a typical June, based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Kamala Beach, and at Kamala Beach the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 4% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kamala Beach and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Kamala Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Kamala Beach run for about 96% of the time.

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