Loch Arbor Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Loch Arbor over a normal August and is based upon 3582 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Loch Arbor. In this particular case the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 15% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Loch Arbor and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Loch Arbor, 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 August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Loch Arbor run for about 85% of the time.

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