Lighthouse Beach Port Macquarie Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Lighthouse Beach Port Macquarie through an average November and is based upon 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Lighthouse Beach Port Macquarie. In this particular case the best grid node is 7 km away (4 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 only 30% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Lighthouse Beach Port Macquarie 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Lighthouse Beach Port Macquarie, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Lighthouse Beach Port Macquarie run for about 70% of the time.

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