Stuart Public Beach Surf Stats

This image illustrates the combination of swells directed at Stuart Public Beach through a typical November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Stuart Public Beach. In the case of Stuart Public Beach, the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 6% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NE (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Stuart Public Beach and away from the coast. 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 surfable at Stuart Public 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 November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Stuart Public Beach run for about 94% of the time.

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