Palm Beach Reef Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Palm Beach Reef over a normal September. It is based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Palm Beach Reef, and at Palm Beach Reef the best grid node is 18 km away (11 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 72% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Palm Beach 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Palm Beach Reef, 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 September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Palm Beach Reef run for about 28% of the time.

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