Lightning Bolt Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the range of swells directed at Lightning Bolt through an average April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Lightning Bolt. In the case of Lightning Bolt, the best grid node is 15 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 46% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Lightning Bolt and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Lightning Bolt, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Lightning Bolt run for about 54% of the time.

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