Guillotines Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the combination of swells directed at Guillotines 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 best grid node based on what we know about Guillotines. In this particular case the best grid node is 9 km away (6 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 18% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Guillotines and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Guillotines, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Guillotines run for about 46% of the time.

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