Kimmeridge Bay Surf Stats

This picture describes the variation of swells directed at Kimmeridge Bay through a typical October. It is based on 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Kimmeridge Bay, and at Kimmeridge Bay the best grid node is 14 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 42% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kimmeridge Bay and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Kimmeridge Bay, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Kimmeridge Bay run for about 27% of the time.

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