This image shows only the swells directed at Apollo Bay that coincided with light winds or offshore conditions through a typical June. It is based on 1594 predictions, one every 3 hours. The direction of the spokes show where quality surf generating swell comes from. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest 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 happens.

The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. 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 50% of the time, equivalent to 15 days. Expect open water swells to exceed >3m (>10ft) 20% of the time (6 days). Taking into account the fraction of these swells that coincided with predicted offshore winds, and given the fact that Apollo Bay is slightly protected from open water swells, we estimate that clean surf can be found at Apollo Bay about 50% of the time and that surf is spoilt by onshore wind 46% of the time. This is means that we expect 29 days with waves in a typical June, of which 15 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.