Cape Pakarang Left Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Cape Pakarang Left through an average August. It is based on 2976 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 best grid node based on what we know about Cape Pakarang Left. In this particular case the best grid node is 36 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 3% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common 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 Cape Pakarang Left 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Cape Pakarang Left, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Cape Pakarang Left run for about 97% of the time.

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