Sawtell-The Island Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Sawtell-The Island through an average August, based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Sawtell-The Island, and at Sawtell-The Island the best grid node is 44 km away (27 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 15% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sawtell-The Island 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 Sawtell-The Island, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Sawtell-The Island run for about 85% of the time.

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