Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Nags Head Pier Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The graph shows the variation of swells directed at Nags Head Pier through an average March. It is based on 2964 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Nags Head Pier. In the case of Nags Head Pier, the best grid node is 12 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 happened only 31% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Nags Head Pier and away from the coast. 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Nags Head Pier, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Nags Head Pier run for about 69% of the time.

Also see Nags Head Pier wind stats

Compare Nags Head Pier with another surf break

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