Coolum Beach Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Coolum Beach through a typical June and is based upon 3266 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 Coolum Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 41 km away (25 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 13% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Coolum Beach and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Coolum Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Coolum Beach run for about 87% of the time.

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