Piccinniny Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the combination of swells directed at Piccinniny over a normal May. It is based on 3192 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 Piccinniny. In the case of Piccinniny, the best grid node is 25 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 85% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Piccinniny and offshore. 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 clean enough to surf at Piccinniny, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Piccinniny run for about 0% of the time.

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