Rock Sound Surf Stats

This chart shows the combination of swells directed at Rock Sound through an average June and is based upon 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Rock Sound. In this particular case the best grid node is 20 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 lacks 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 only 20% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was E, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Rock Sound and out to sea. We group 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 surfable at Rock Sound, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Rock Sound run for about 10% of the time.

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