Badoc Point • Statistics for January

January: The Peak of the Northeast Monsoon

January is the northeast monsoon at full strength. The wind rose is dominated by ENE (29.2%), NE (25.5%) and E (12.9%), while the swell rose comes almost entirely from the NNE (47.1%) and NE (25.7%) quadrants. The average swell height is a solid 6ft (1.8m) with an average period of 7.7s, so there is plenty of punchy, rideable windswell in the region, but very little of it is aimed at Badoc Point. The favorable W-WNW-NW-NNW window accounts for only around 2% of observed swell, meaning the majority of that size stays unbroken, shadowed, or lined up parallel to the coast.

Still, it is not a dead month. The ENE/E flow is frequently offshore or cross-offshore for this WNW-facing beach, and the ideal wind frequency is a decent 44%. With air temperatures around 23.7 degrees Celsius, water at 25.3 degrees Celsius and just 0.77mm/day of rain, the dry season can offer clean surface conditions. The surf quality depends almost entirely on those rare NW/NNW pulses; if a South China Sea low pushes a 10s+ NW groundswell into the coast, it will beat the averages. Otherwise expect raw, lumpy, and mostly marginal NE windswell.