Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Swanage Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at Swanage through an average March and is based upon 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Swanage, and at Swanage the best grid node is 13 km away (8 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 45% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, 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 Swanage and out to sea. We combine 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 Swanage, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Swanage run for about 3% of the time.

Also see Swanage wind stats

Compare Swanage with another surf break

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