Brak River Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at Brak River through an average May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Brak River. In the case of Brak River, the best grid node is 46 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 happened only 81% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Brak River and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Brak River, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Brak River run for about 19% of the time.

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