Agate Beach Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at Agate Beach through a typical May and is based upon 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Agate Beach, and at Agate Beach the best grid node is 38 km away (24 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 7% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Agate Beach and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Agate Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Agate Beach run for about 93% of the time.

read more