Scar Reef Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Scar Reef 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 shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Scar Reef. In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast only 0% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, 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 largest spokes, was SW, 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 Scar Reef and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Scar Reef, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Scar Reef run for about 6% of the time.

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