Pobbles Beach Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Pobbles Beach through a typical August and is based upon 3589 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Pobbles Beach, and at Pobbles Beach the best grid node is 10 km away (6 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 were forecast 24% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pobbles Beach 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Pobbles Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Pobbles Beach run for about 17% of the time.

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