Zorba Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Zorba through a typical June, based on 3384 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Zorba. In the case of Zorba, the best grid node is 9 km away (6 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened 43% 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 commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was S, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Zorba and out to sea. We lump these in 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 surfable at Zorba, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Zorba run for about 57% of the time.

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