White Park Bay Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at White Park Bay through an average September, based on 3360 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about White Park Bay. In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast only 18% 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 occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from White Park Bay and out to sea. 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at White Park Bay, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at White Park Bay run for about 82% of the time.

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