Frigates Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Frigates through a typical September and is based upon 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Frigates. In the case of Frigates, the best grid node is 4 km away (2 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 21% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Frigates and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Frigates, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Frigates run for about 79% of the time.

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