Morfa Mawr Surf Stats

The graph describes the combination of swells directed at Morfa Mawr through a typical June and is based upon 2785 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Morfa Mawr, and at Morfa Mawr the best grid node is 16 km away (10 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred 34% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Morfa Mawr and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Morfa Mawr, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Morfa Mawr run for about 15% of the time.

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