Sri Lanka Surf Stats

This image shows the combination of swells directed at Sri Lanka through an average May and is based upon 3422 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Sri Lanka. In this particular case the best grid node is 34 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 1.4% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest 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 prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sri Lanka and away from the coast. We combine these 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 Sri Lanka, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Sri Lanka run for about 97% of the time.

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