Outside Shoals Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Outside Shoals through an average July and is based upon 2976 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Outside Shoals, and at Outside Shoals the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 12% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Outside Shoals 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Outside Shoals, 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 July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Outside Shoals run for about 88% of the time.

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