Snapper Rocks (Superbank) Swell Window
Gold Coast, QLD, Australia · part of the Snapper Rocks (Superbank) spot guide
- Swell window (from)
- 70°–150° (ENE–SSE)
- Best direction
- ~120° (ESE)
- Period sweet spot
- 10–16 s
- Open-ocean height (Hs)
- 5–12 ft
- Resulting faces
- 3–8 ft
Open-ocean vs. the face: the heights on buoys and forecast models are significant wave height (Hs) in deep water. What you ride is the breaking face, which depends on period, direction and this break's bathymetry — that's why the two rows above differ. PierMonkey's spot ratings already do this conversion for you.
Snapper needs an easterly component to wrap Point Danger. The productive window runs roughly 70° to 150°, best in the east-southeast around 100–140°; anything much south of that is shadowed by Cook Island and then the mainland. Period of around 12 seconds and up gives the cleanest connected rides. (The wider northern edge of the raw calibration is effectively dead for this wrap.)
This is the rare wave where the breaking face is smaller than the open-ocean reading — the long wrap around the point trades height for length. A 6–8 ft significant height in the open ocean makes a clean, rippable 4–6 ft face on the bank; the payoff is not size but the length of the ride.