Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Sawtell Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Sawtell over a normal March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Sawtell. In the case of Sawtell, the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 12% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sawtell and away from the coast. 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 Sawtell, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Sawtell run for about 88% of the time.

Also see Sawtell wind stats

Compare Sawtell with another surf break

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