Fraser Island - Indian Head Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Fraser Island - Indian Head through an average April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Fraser Island - Indian Head. In the case of Fraser Island - Indian Head, the best grid node is 14 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 were forecast only 1.1% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest 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 happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Fraser Island - Indian Head and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Fraser Island - Indian Head, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Fraser Island - Indian Head run for about 99% of the time.

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