Shipwrecks Bay-Peaks Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Shipwrecks Bay-Peaks over a normal July and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Shipwrecks Bay-Peaks. In the case of Shipwrecks Bay-Peaks, the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 5% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW, 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 Shipwrecks Bay-Peaks and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Shipwrecks Bay-Peaks, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Shipwrecks Bay-Peaks run for about 72% of the time.

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