Flame Bowls Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Flame Bowls over a normal October, based on 3165 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 best grid node based on what we know about Flame Bowls. In this particular case the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 were forecast only 0% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Flame Bowls and offshore. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Flame Bowls, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Flame Bowls run for about 75% of the time.

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