The Farm Surf Stats

The graph shows the combination of swells directed at The Farm over a normal April and is based upon 3360 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about The Farm. In this particular case the best grid node is 4 km away (2 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 0.6% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from The Farm and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at The Farm, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at The Farm run for about 41% of the time.

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