13th Beach • Statistics for January

January: The Summer Seabreeze Struggle

Summer has a firm grip on 13th Beach in January, and the daily onshore regime is the defining feature. Southeasterly to southwesterly winds - from the SSE through SW quadrant - account for around half of the wind distribution, while clean offshore flow from the N, NNE, NE and NNW window is limited to about 11% of observations. The thermal seabreeze kicks in almost every day, blowing straight into the SSW-facing shore and turning any nice morning swell into lumpy, chopped-out surf by midday. The swell itself is still dominated by long-period Southern Ocean groundswell, with SW and SSW directions combining for over 74% of the waverose and the average period holding at a solid 11.1s. Average wave heights sit at around 5ft (1.5m), with most waves in the 3-5ft (1-1.5m) and 5-6.5ft (1.5-2m) range. Given that ideal surfing wind only occurs 14% of the time, the smart play is an early dawn patrol before the seabreeze ruins the surface.

Water temperature peaks at a warm 20.6°C, average air temps sit near 17.8°C, and January sees moderate precipitation around 1.66 mm/day. Comfortable summer water, but surf quality is heavily wind-dependent.