Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Banff Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at Banff through an average March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Banff, and at Banff the best grid node is 37 km away (23 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without 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 occurred only 72% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Banff and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Banff, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Banff run for about 15% of the time.

Also see Banff wind stats

Compare Banff with another surf break

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