Sharpleys Point Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Sharpleys Point through a typical September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Sharpleys Point. In this particular case the best grid node is 42 km away (26 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 31% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). 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 largest spokes, was S, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sharpleys Point and out to sea. 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 surfable at Sharpleys Point, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Sharpleys Point run for about 69% of the time.

read more