Pelican Poles Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the variation of swells directed at Pelican Poles through an average June. It is based on 3026 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Pelican Poles, and at Pelican Poles the best grid node is 22 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 occurred 48% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pelican Poles 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Pelican Poles, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Pelican Poles run for about 52% of the time.

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