Shark Pit Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Shark Pit over a normal November and is based upon 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Shark Pit. In this particular case the best grid node is 37 km away (23 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 68% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Shark Pit 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Shark Pit, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Shark Pit run for about 2.0% of the time.

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