Burleigh Heads Surf Stats

This image describes the variation of swells directed at Burleigh Heads through an average July, based on 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Burleigh Heads. In this particular case the best grid node is 11 km away (7 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 45% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Burleigh Heads and out to sea. 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Burleigh Heads, 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 July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Burleigh Heads run for about 18% of the time.

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