Slade Bay/Boot Reef Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Slade Bay/Boot Reef through an average July and is based upon 3472 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Slade Bay/Boot Reef, and at Slade Bay/Boot Reef the best grid node is 14 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred 32% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Slade Bay/Boot Reef and offshore. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Slade Bay/Boot Reef, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Slade Bay/Boot Reef run for about 14% of the time.

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