The Wharf Rights Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the combination of swells directed at The Wharf Rights over a normal June and is based upon 3384 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about The Wharf Rights. In the case of The Wharf Rights, the best grid node is 10 km away (6 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 happened only 27% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from The Wharf Rights and offshore. We lump these in 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 The Wharf Rights, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at The Wharf Rights run for about 73% of the time.

read more