Old Man's Hat Surf Stats

The graph describes the combination of swells directed at Old Man's Hat over a normal October. It is based on 2976 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Old Man's Hat. In the case of Old Man's Hat, the best grid node is 12 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 64% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the dominant 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 Old Man's Hat and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Old Man's Hat, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical October, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Old Man's Hat run for about 15% of the time.

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