Sandtracks Wind Stats

The figure describes how commonly and how strongly the wind blows from different directions over a normal June. The largest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue indicates the strength, with the strongest winds shown by the darkest shade of blue. It is based on 3266 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Sandtracks, located 34 km away (21 miles). There are not enough recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Invevitably some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the prevailing wind at Sandtracks blows from the S. If the rose diagram shows a close to circular outline, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Sandtracks. By contrast, dominant spokes illustrate favoured directions, and the more the darkest shade of blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. During a typical June, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (the lightest shade of blue) about 6% of the time (2 days each June) and blows offshore 7% of the time (2 days in an average June). Over an average June winds exceeding >40kph (25mph) are not expected, but 5 have winds on the range 30-40 (19-25) at Sandtracks

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