Qingshan Bay Surf Stats

This image illustrates the combination of swells directed at Qingshan Bay through a typical November, based on 3347 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Qingshan Bay, and at Qingshan Bay the best grid node is 18 km away (11 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 100% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was S, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Qingshan Bay and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Qingshan Bay, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Qingshan Bay run for about 0% of the time.

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