Kurihama Surf Stats

This picture describes the combination of swells directed at Kurihama through an average October. It is based on 3471 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Kurihama, and at Kurihama the best grid node is 29 km away (18 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 77% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was S, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kurihama and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Kurihama, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Kurihama run for about 23% of the time.

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