Oysterhaven Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Oysterhaven through an average May and is based upon 2838 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Oysterhaven, and at Oysterhaven 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 occurred only 33% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Oysterhaven and away from the coast. We lump these in 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 Oysterhaven, 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 May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Oysterhaven run for about 10% of the time.

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