The Pier Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at The Pier through an average May. It is based on 3430 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about The Pier. In the case of The Pier, the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 90% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate 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 most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from The Pier and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at The Pier, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at The Pier run for about 10% of the time.

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