Shipwreck Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the variation of swells directed at Shipwreck 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 shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Shipwreck, and at Shipwreck the best grid node is 10 km away (6 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 represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 0% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents highest 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Shipwreck and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Shipwreck, you can load a different image 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 surfable waves at Shipwreck run for about 100% of the time.

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