Penfoul Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at Penfoul over a normal October. It is based on 3223 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 Penfoul. In the case of Penfoul, the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 10% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W, 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 Penfoul and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Penfoul, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Penfoul run for about 90% of the time.

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