Delaware Bay (East end) Surf Stats

This image illustrates the variation of swells directed at Delaware Bay (East end) through an average September and is based upon 2400 NWW3 model predictions since 2008 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Delaware Bay (East end). In this particular case the best grid node is 18 km away (11 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred 35% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Delaware Bay (East end) and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Delaware Bay (East end), you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Delaware Bay (East end) run for about 65% of the time.

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