Killadoon Surf Stats

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Killadoon over a normal August and is based upon 3582 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 best grid node based on what we know about Killadoon. In this particular case the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 10% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Killadoon and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Killadoon, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Killadoon run for about 80% of the time.

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