Sailors Grave Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Sailors Grave through an average July. It is based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Sailors Grave, and at Sailors Grave the best grid node is 15 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast 45% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was E, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sailors Grave and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Sailors Grave, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Sailors Grave run for about 28% of the time.

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