Woody Head Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the range of swells directed at Woody Head over a normal May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Woody Head. In the case of Woody Head, the best grid node is 19 km away (12 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 only 4% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Woody Head and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Woody Head, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Woody Head run for about 96% of the time.

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