Rabbit Island Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the combination of swells directed at Rabbit Island over a normal February, based on 2663 NWW3 model predictions since 2009 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Rabbit Island, and at Rabbit Island the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 were forecast 83% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Rabbit Island 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Rabbit Island, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical February, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Rabbit Island run for about 2.0% of the time.

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