Little Joes/Between the Jetties Surf Stats

This picture describes the variation of swells directed at Little Joes/Between the Jetties through a typical November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Little Joes/Between the Jetties. In the case of Little Joes/Between the Jetties, the best grid node is 11 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 3% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Little Joes/Between the Jetties and out to sea. 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 Little Joes/Between the Jetties, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Little Joes/Between the Jetties run for about 97% of the time.

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