Crabbs Creek Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Crabbs Creek through a typical November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Crabbs Creek. In this particular case the best grid node is 55 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 occurred only 45% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Crabbs Creek and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Crabbs Creek, 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 November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Crabbs Creek run for about 55% of the time.

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