This image shows only the swells directed at Ansteys that coincided with light winds or offshore conditions over a normal March and is based upon 1724 predictions, one every 3 hours. The direction of the spokes show where quality surf generating swell comes from. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the E. The chart at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. For example, swells larger than 1.5 feet (0.5m) coincided with good wind conditions 22% of the time, equivalent to 7 days. Open sea swells exceeding >3m (>10ft) are unlikely to happen in a normal March but 6% of the time we expect swell in the range 2-3m (6.5-10ft) 6%, equivalent to (2 days). Taking into account the ratio of these swells that coincided with expected offshore winds, and given the fact that Ansteys is exposed to open water swells, we think that that clean surf can be found at Ansteys about 22% of the time and that surf is spoilt by onshore wind 47% of the time. This is means that we expect 21 days with waves in a typical March, of which 7 days should be surfable.

IMPORTANT: Beta version feature! Swell heights are open water values from NWW3. There is no attempt to model near-shore effects. Coastal wave heights will generally be less, especially if the break does not have unobstructed exposure to the open ocean.