Wave and wind occurrences in Sydney

Sydney's wave seasons from the Longreef buoy: which months bring the biggest swell, from which direction, and how often.

Thanks to Manly Hydraulics Laboratory, and their buoy located 10 km off Longreef, we can get a sense of the wave seasonality resulting from 27 years of measurements. Here a summary of the data available at this page. In short: Autumn and Winter have the most powerful waves.

Which direction are waves more likely to come from? SSE, especially in Winter

While less frequent, the southerly swell brings bigger waves on average.

Which month has the biggest wave average? June (1.77 m.)

While the highest waves occur in April and May, the highest average is in June. Note: the significant wave height (Hsig) is defined as the average of the highest one third of the wave heights in a 30 minute wave record.

Which month has the longest wave period? July (10.67 sec.)

Note: Peak Wave Period (Tp1) indicates how long are the waves with maximum energy

Wind occurrences

Wind rose explanations on the BOM website

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Spring