Jenness Beach Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Jenness Beach through an average May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Jenness Beach. In the case of Jenness Beach, the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 occurred 29% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Jenness Beach and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Jenness Beach, 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 May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Jenness Beach run for about 71% of the time.

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