Zud Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Zud through an average November and is based upon 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Zud. In the case of Zud, the best grid node is 17 km away (11 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 57% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Zud and away from the coast. We group 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 clean enough to surf at Zud, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Zud run for about 43% of the time.

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