Red Strand (Dirk Bay) Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Red Strand (Dirk Bay) over a normal September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Red Strand (Dirk Bay). In the case of Red Strand (Dirk Bay), the best grid node is 7 km away (4 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 20% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Red Strand (Dirk Bay) and out to sea. We combine these 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 clean enough to surf at Red Strand (Dirk Bay), you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Red Strand (Dirk Bay) run for about 13% of the time.

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