The Cutting Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at The Cutting through a typical August, based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about The Cutting. In this particular case the best grid node is 11 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 7% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from The Cutting and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at The Cutting, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at The Cutting run for about 93% of the time.

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