Wilsons Inlet Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Wilsons Inlet through an average August, based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Wilsons Inlet, and at Wilsons Inlet the best grid node is 55 km away (34 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 happened only 1.1% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Wilsons Inlet and offshore. 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 surfable at Wilsons Inlet, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Wilsons Inlet run for about 97% of the time.

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