Newport-Crosswaves Surf Stats

This chart describes the variation of swells directed at Newport-Crosswaves through an average November and is based upon 2867 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Newport-Crosswaves, and at Newport-Crosswaves the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 24% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents 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 prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Newport-Crosswaves and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Newport-Crosswaves, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Newport-Crosswaves run for about 76% of the time.

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