North Assateague (The Wedge) Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at North Assateague (The Wedge) over a normal April. It is based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 North Assateague (The Wedge), and at North Assateague (The Wedge) the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 26% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, 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 largest spokes, was SE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from North Assateague (The Wedge) and out to sea. We group 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 North Assateague (The Wedge), you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at North Assateague (The Wedge) run for about 74% of the time.

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