Tower Bay Surf Stats

The graph shows the range of swells directed at Tower Bay through an average October and is based upon 3471 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 Tower Bay. In the case of Tower Bay, the best grid node is 55 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 happened 53% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, 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 biggest spokes, was S, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tower Bay and offshore. We lump these in 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 Tower Bay, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Tower Bay run for about 4% of the time.

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