Bakio Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at Bakio through an average April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Bakio. In the case of Bakio, the best grid node is 18 km away (11 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 4% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, 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 largest spokes, was NW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Bakio and away from the coast. We group these 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 clean enough to surf at Bakio, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Bakio run for about 96% of the time.

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