Tubes Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at Tubes through an average November and is based upon 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Tubes, and at Tubes the best grid node is 52 km away (32 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 22% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each 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 biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tubes and away from the coast. 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 good for surfing at Tubes, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Tubes run for about 36% of the time.

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