Seacrest Drive Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Seacrest Drive over a normal September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Seacrest Drive. In the case of Seacrest Drive, the best grid node is 6 km away (4 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 8% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Seacrest Drive and offshore. We combine 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 Seacrest Drive, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Seacrest Drive run for about 92% of the time.

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