Shipwreck Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Shipwreck through a typical April, based on 3360 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Shipwreck. In the case of Shipwreck, the best grid node is 47 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 0% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, 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 SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Shipwreck and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Shipwreck, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Shipwreck run for about 100% of the time.

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