Kisami-Ohama Beach Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the range of swells directed at Kisami-Ohama Beach through a typical April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Kisami-Ohama Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 19 km away (12 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 represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 41% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kisami-Ohama Beach and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Kisami-Ohama Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Kisami-Ohama Beach run for about 59% of the time.

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