Coney Beach Surf Stats

The figure shows the range of swells directed at Coney Beach through a typical May, based on 3406 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Coney Beach, and at Coney Beach the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 38% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Coney Beach and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Coney Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Coney Beach run for about 5% of the time.

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