Horse Head Reef Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the range of swells directed at Horse Head Reef through an average November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Horse Head Reef, and at Horse Head Reef the best grid node is 37 km away (23 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 occurred only 53% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, 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 NNE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Horse Head Reef and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Horse Head Reef, you can select a similar diagram 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 clean enough to surf waves at Horse Head Reef run for about 28% of the time.

read more