Sand Dollar Beach Surf Stats

The graph describes the combination of swells directed at Sand Dollar Beach through an average April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Sand Dollar Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 47 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened only 12% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sand Dollar Beach 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Sand Dollar Beach, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Sand Dollar Beach run for about 88% of the time.

read more