Honeymoon Island Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Honeymoon Island through an average November. It is based on 3340 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 Honeymoon Island. In this particular case the best grid node is 20 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast 88% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, 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 SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Honeymoon Island and offshore. We group these 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 Honeymoon Island, 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 November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Honeymoon Island run for about 12% of the time.

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