Portwrinkle Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Portwrinkle over a normal April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Portwrinkle, and at Portwrinkle the best grid node is 41 km away (25 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 happened only 28% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Portwrinkle 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Portwrinkle, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Portwrinkle run for about 35% of the time.

read more