Pine Point Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the range of swells directed at Pine Point over a normal November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Pine Point, and at Pine Point the best grid node is 28 km away (17 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 represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred 28% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pine Point and out to sea. We combine 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 Pine Point, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Pine Point run for about 72% of the time.

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