Bird Lookout Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Bird Lookout through a typical December, based on 3448 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 Bird Lookout. In this particular case the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 happened only 0.5% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Bird Lookout and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Bird Lookout, 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 December, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Bird Lookout run for about 100% of the time.

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