Ballydavid Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the combination of swells directed at Ballydavid through an average November, based on 3347 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Ballydavid. In this particular case the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 90% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ballydavid and offshore. We group 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 clean enough to surf at Ballydavid, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Ballydavid run for about 7% of the time.

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