Cable Bay Surf Stats

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at Cable Bay over a normal September. It is based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2008 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Cable Bay. In this particular case the best grid node is 19 km away (12 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast 35% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cable Bay and offshore. We combine these 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 Cable Bay, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Cable Bay run for about 25% of the time.

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