Sunset Point/Vals Reef Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Sunset Point/Vals Reef through a typical May and is based upon 3430 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 best grid node based on what we know about Sunset Point/Vals Reef. In the case of Sunset Point/Vals Reef, the best grid node is 36 km away (22 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 represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 57% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). 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 largest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sunset Point/Vals Reef and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Sunset Point/Vals Reef, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Sunset Point/Vals Reef run for about 43% of the time.

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