Hvide Sande Surf Stats

This image describes the range of swells directed at Hvide Sande 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 or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Hvide Sande. In this particular case the best grid node is 8 km away (5 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 60% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Hvide Sande and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Hvide Sande, you can load a different image 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 clean enough to surf waves at Hvide Sande run for about 40% of the time.

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