Petes Reef Surf Stats

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Petes Reef through an average April. It is based on 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Petes Reef. In the case of Petes Reef, the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened 30% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Petes Reef and offshore. We combine these 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 surfable at Petes Reef, 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 April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Petes Reef run for about 70% of the time.

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