Slade Bay/Boot Reef Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Slade Bay/Boot Reef over a normal June and is based upon 3265 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Slade Bay/Boot Reef, and at Slade Bay/Boot Reef the best grid node is 14 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast 36% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Slade Bay/Boot Reef and out to sea. We lump these in 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 surfable at Slade Bay/Boot Reef, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Slade Bay/Boot Reef run for about 15% of the time.

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