Spanish Bay-South Moss Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the range of swells directed at Spanish Bay-South Moss through a typical July 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 shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Spanish Bay-South Moss. In the case of Spanish Bay-South Moss, the best grid node is 14 km away (9 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 happened only 30% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Spanish Bay-South Moss and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Spanish Bay-South Moss, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Spanish Bay-South Moss run for about 70% of the time.

read more