Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Drakes Bay Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Drakes Bay through an average March and is based upon 2964 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Drakes Bay, and at Drakes Bay the best grid node is 7 km away (4 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 96% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Drakes Bay and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Drakes Bay, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Drakes Bay run for about 4% of the time.

Also see Drakes Bay wind stats

Compare Drakes Bay with another surf break

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