Lincoln City Nelscott Reef Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the range of swells directed at Lincoln City Nelscott Reef over a normal April, based on 1200 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Lincoln City Nelscott Reef. In the case of Lincoln City Nelscott Reef, the best grid node is 38 km away (24 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 3% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Lincoln City Nelscott Reef 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Lincoln City Nelscott Reef, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Lincoln City Nelscott Reef run for about 97% of the time.

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