Royal Palms State Beach Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at Royal Palms State Beach over a normal July, based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Royal Palms State Beach. In the case of Royal Palms State Beach, the best grid node is 29 km away (18 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 4% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Royal Palms State Beach and away from the coast. We combine 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 clean enough to surf at Royal Palms State Beach, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Royal Palms State Beach run for about 1.0% of the time.

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