Fish Boma Surf Stats

The figure describes the combination of swells directed at Fish Boma over a normal July. It is based on 3224 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Fish Boma. In this particular case the best grid node is 48 km away (30 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 4% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Fish Boma and offshore. We combine 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 Fish Boma, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Fish Boma run for about 96% of the time.

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