Horse Head Reef Surf Stats

This chart shows the range of swells directed at Horse Head Reef through an average October and is based upon 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Horse Head Reef. In this particular case the best grid node is 37 km away (23 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 were forecast only 54% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Horse Head Reef and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Horse Head Reef, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Horse Head Reef run for about 22% of the time.

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