Newport Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Newport through an average April. It is based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Newport. In the case of Newport, the best grid node is 11 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened 35% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Newport and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Newport, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Newport run for about 8% of the time.

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