Kilcummin Harbour Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at Kilcummin Harbour through a typical November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Kilcummin Harbour. In this particular case the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 30% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kilcummin Harbour 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Kilcummin Harbour, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Kilcummin Harbour run for about 70% of the time.

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