Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Lighthouse Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The rose diagram describes the range of swells directed at Lighthouse through a typical March. It is based on 3460 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Lighthouse, and at Lighthouse the best grid node is 3 km away (2 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 were forecast only 0.9% of the time. Green and yellow show 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 occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SSE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Lighthouse and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Lighthouse, 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 March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Lighthouse run for about 99% of the time.

Also see Lighthouse wind stats

Compare Lighthouse with another surf break

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