Bill's Bowls Surf Stats

The figure shows the range of swells directed at Bill's Bowls over a normal November. It is based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Bill's Bowls, and at Bill's Bowls the best grid node is 20 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast only 5% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Bill's Bowls and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Bill's Bowls, 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 November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Bill's Bowls run for about 95% of the time.

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