Kelps Surf Stats

This image describes the variation of swells directed at Kelps through an average April. It is based on 3360 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Kelps, and at Kelps the best grid node is 1 km away (1 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 0.2% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents highest 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 prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kelps and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Kelps, 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 April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Kelps run for about 100% of the time.

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