Rapid Creek - Reef Surf Stats

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at Rapid Creek - Reef through a typical November. It is based on 3343 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 best grid node based on what we know about Rapid Creek - Reef, and at Rapid Creek - Reef the best grid node is 56 km away (35 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 were forecast 98% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, 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 Rapid Creek - Reef and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Rapid Creek - Reef, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Rapid Creek - Reef run for about 2.0% of the time.

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