Grabbers Surf Stats

This image shows the range of swells directed at Grabbers through a typical September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Grabbers. In the case of Grabbers, the best grid node is 29 km away (18 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 happened only 0.2% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Grabbers and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Grabbers, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Grabbers run for about 100% of the time.

read more