Wells Beach Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the range of swells directed at Wells Beach through a typical June and is based upon 3384 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Wells Beach. In the case of Wells Beach, the best grid node is 35 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened 32% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Wells 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Wells Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Wells Beach run for about 68% of the time.

read more