Palm Beach Reef Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Palm Beach Reef over a normal April, based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Palm Beach Reef. In the case of Palm Beach Reef, the best grid node is 18 km away (11 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 71% 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 Palm Beach Reef 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Palm Beach Reef, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Palm Beach Reef run for about 29% of the time.

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