Carrowmore Surf Stats

This image shows the variation of swells directed at Carrowmore through an average April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Carrowmore. In this particular case the best grid node is 54 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 33% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Carrowmore and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Carrowmore, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Carrowmore run for about 44% of the time.

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