Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Richards Bay (Outside) Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Richards Bay (Outside) through a typical March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Richards Bay (Outside). In this particular case the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 47% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Richards Bay (Outside) and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Richards Bay (Outside), you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Richards Bay (Outside) run for about 53% of the time.

Also see Richards Bay (Outside) wind stats

Compare Richards Bay (Outside) with another surf break

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