Lucky Point Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Lucky Point through an average June, based on 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Lucky Point, and at Lucky Point the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 11% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Lucky Point and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Lucky Point, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Lucky Point run for about 89% of the time.

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