Ballina North Wall Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Ballina North Wall through a typical May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Ballina North Wall, and at Ballina North Wall the best grid node is 42 km away (26 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 61% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ballina North Wall and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Ballina North Wall, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Ballina North Wall run for about 39% of the time.

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