Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Papara Beach Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The graph shows the range of swells directed at Papara Beach over a normal March. It is based on 2964 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Papara Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 8% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Papara Beach and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Papara Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Papara Beach run for about 92% of the time.

Also see Papara Beach wind stats

Compare Papara Beach with another surf break

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