Longnook Beach Surf Stats
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All swells
This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Longnook Beach through a typical March. It is based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Longnook Beach, and at Longnook Beach the best grid node is 2 km away (1 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 represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 52% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either 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 NE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Longnook Beach and out to sea. We combine 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 Longnook Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Longnook Beach run for about 48% of the time.