Safety Cove Reef Surf Stats

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at Safety Cove Reef through a typical August. It is based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Safety Cove Reef. In this particular case the best grid node is 46 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 68% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was S, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Safety Cove Reef and offshore. We combine 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 Safety Cove Reef, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Safety Cove Reef run for about 16% of the time.

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