Boulevard Surf Stats

This image illustrates the combination of swells directed at Boulevard through a typical July, based on 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Boulevard. In the case of Boulevard, the best grid node is 75 km away (47 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred 18% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Boulevard and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Boulevard, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Boulevard run for about 2.0% of the time.

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