Poundeers Beach Surf Stats

The graph shows the combination of swells directed at Poundeers Beach through a typical September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Poundeers Beach, and at Poundeers Beach the best grid node is 42 km away (26 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 happened only 25% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Poundeers Beach and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Poundeers Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Poundeers Beach run for about 75% of the time.

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