Statistiques de Surf de Gunnamatta Beach

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Gunnamatta Beach over a normal August. It is based on 3472 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Gunnamatta Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 32 km away (20 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 6% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Gunnamatta Beach and out to sea. We combine these 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 Gunnamatta Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Gunnamatta Beach run for about 94% of the time.

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