Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Wilkes Pass Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture describes the combination of swells directed at Wilkes Pass over a normal March. It is based on 3460 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Wilkes Pass. In this particular case the best grid node is 25 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 9% of the time. Green and yellow show 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 frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Wilkes Pass 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 clean enough to surf at Wilkes Pass, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Wilkes Pass run for about 91% of the time.

Also see Wilkes Pass wind stats

Compare Wilkes Pass with another surf break

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