Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Tunnels Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Tunnels through a typical March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Tunnels. In this particular case the best grid node is 31 km away (19 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 29% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tunnels 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Tunnels, 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 clean enough to surf waves at Tunnels run for about 71% of the time.

Also see Tunnels wind stats

Compare Tunnels with another surf break

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