Fraserburgh Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Fraserburgh through an average July, based on 3224 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 Fraserburgh. In the case of Fraserburgh, the best grid node is 35 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 64% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was N, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Fraserburgh and out to sea. We lump these in 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 Fraserburgh, 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 Fraserburgh run for about 36% of the time.

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