South Sound Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at South Sound through an average July. It is based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about South Sound. 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 lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 36% of the time. Green and yellow represent 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 prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from South Sound and away from the coast. We combine 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 clean enough to surf at South Sound, 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 surfable waves at South Sound run for about 64% of the time.

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