Tunnels Surf Stats

This image shows the variation of swells directed at Tunnels over a normal June, based on 3384 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Tunnels. In the case of Tunnels, the best grid node is 28 km away (17 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 27% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, 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 Tunnels and away from the coast. 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Tunnels, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Tunnels run for about 73% of the time.

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