Jailbreak Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Jailbreak through an average April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Jailbreak. In the case of Jailbreak, the best grid node is 29 km away (18 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 45% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was N, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Jailbreak and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Jailbreak, 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 good for surfing waves at Jailbreak run for about 55% of the time.

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