Mdumbe Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Mdumbe through an average 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 coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Mdumbe. In this particular case the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 18% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was S, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Mdumbe and offshore. We group these 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 good for surfing at Mdumbe, you can select a similar diagram 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 clean enough to surf waves at Mdumbe run for about 82% of the time.

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