North Wildwood Surf Stats

This image describes the range of swells directed at North Wildwood through an average June and is based upon 2786 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about North Wildwood. In this particular case the best grid node is 8784 km away (5458 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast only 53% of the time. Green and yellow show 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 happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was S, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SSE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from North Wildwood and offshore. We group 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 good for surfing at North Wildwood, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at North Wildwood run for about 47% of the time.

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