Rabbit Island Surf Stats

The graph shows the variation of swells directed at Rabbit Island over a normal September, based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2008 (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 Rabbit Island. In this particular case the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 67% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the prevailing 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 Rabbit Island and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Rabbit Island, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Rabbit Island run for about 8% of the time.

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