Point Dume Little Dume Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Point Dume Little Dume through an average June. It is based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Point Dume Little Dume, and at Point Dume Little Dume the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 8% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Point Dume Little Dume and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Point Dume Little Dume, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Point Dume Little Dume run for about 92% of the time.

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