Fingal Bay Surf Stats

This chart shows the combination of swells directed at Fingal Bay through a typical September. It is based on 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Fingal Bay. In the case of Fingal Bay, the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 35% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Fingal Bay 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 Fingal Bay, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Fingal Bay run for about 65% of the time.

read more