Oualidia Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Oualidia through an average November, based on 2867 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Oualidia. In this particular case the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 4% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Oualidia 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Oualidia, 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 Oualidia run for about 50% of the time.

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