Tank Beach Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Tank Beach over a normal May. It is based on 3430 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Tank Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 3% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tank 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Tank Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Tank Beach run for about 97% of the time.

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