Tankers Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Tankers over a normal May. It is based on 3430 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Tankers, and at Tankers the best grid node is 34 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 36% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tankers and offshore. We combine these 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 surfable at Tankers, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Tankers run for about 64% of the time.

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