North Pier (Narragansett) Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at North Pier (Narragansett) through an average July, based on 2976 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 best grid node based on what we know about North Pier (Narragansett). In this particular case the best grid node is 39 km away (24 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 95% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from North Pier (Narragansett) and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at North Pier (Narragansett), you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at North Pier (Narragansett) run for about 1.0% of the time.

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