Embassy Beach Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Embassy Beach through an average May, based on 2838 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Embassy Beach, and at Embassy Beach the best grid node is 48 km away (30 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without 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 29% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, 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 SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Embassy Beach and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Embassy Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Embassy Beach run for about 71% of the time.

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