Carrownisky Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the range of swells directed at Carrownisky through an average July and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Carrownisky. In this particular case the best grid node is 48 km away (30 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened only 7% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Carrownisky and out to sea. 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Carrownisky, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Carrownisky run for about 66% of the time.

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