Bracklesham Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at Bracklesham through an average August, based on 3078 NWW3 model predictions since 2008 (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 Bracklesham. In the case of Bracklesham, the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened 40% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Bracklesham and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Bracklesham, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Bracklesham run for about 14% of the time.

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