Nago Surf Stats

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at Nago through a typical April. It is based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Nago. In the case of Nago, the best grid node is 28 km away (17 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 95% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was N, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Nago 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 clean enough to surf at Nago, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Nago run for about 5% of the time.

read more