The Womb Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at The Womb over a normal October, based on 3471 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about The Womb. In the case of The Womb, the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 0.3% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from The Womb 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 clean enough to surf at The Womb, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at The Womb run for about 100% of the time.

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