Mckee's Creek Surf Stats

This picture describes the combination of swells directed at Mckee's Creek through a typical July and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Mckee's Creek. In the case of Mckee's Creek, the best grid node is 44 km away (27 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 happened only 72% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Mckee's Creek and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Mckee's Creek, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Mckee's Creek run for about 28% of the time.

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