Logs Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Logs over a normal April. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Logs, and at Logs the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without 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 occurred only 45% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was N, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Logs and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Logs, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Logs run for about 55% of the time.

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