No Boats Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at No Boats through an average October, based on 2976 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about No Boats. In this particular case the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 73% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from No Boats and out to sea. 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 clean enough to surf at No Boats, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at No Boats run for about 27% of the time.

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