Struisbaai Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Struisbaai over a normal December, based on 3448 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Struisbaai. In the case of Struisbaai, the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 14% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Struisbaai 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 surfable at Struisbaai, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical December, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Struisbaai run for about 65% of the time.

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