Jockos Point Surf Stats

This image describes the variation of swells directed at Jockos Point through a typical July and is based upon 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Jockos Point. In this particular case the best grid node is 43 km away (27 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 92% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Jockos Point and offshore. We lump these in 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 good for surfing at Jockos Point, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Jockos Point run for about 8% of the time.

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