Saligo (Islay) Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Saligo (Islay) through an average August and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Saligo (Islay), and at Saligo (Islay) the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 12% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Saligo (Islay) and offshore. We lump these in 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 good for surfing at Saligo (Islay), 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 August, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Saligo (Islay) run for about 88% of the time.

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