Princeton Breakwater Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the range of swells directed at Princeton Breakwater over a normal October. It is based on 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Princeton Breakwater. In the case of Princeton Breakwater, the best grid node is 2 km away (1 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 44% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing 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 Princeton Breakwater 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Princeton Breakwater, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Princeton Breakwater run for about 56% of the time.

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