Carlton Rivermouth Surf Stats

This image illustrates the variation of swells directed at Carlton Rivermouth through a typical May, based on 3406 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Carlton Rivermouth, and at Carlton Rivermouth the best grid node is 70 km away (43 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 occurred only 10% of the time. Green and yellow represent 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 commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common 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 Carlton Rivermouth and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Carlton Rivermouth, 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 May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Carlton Rivermouth run for about 79% of the time.

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