Gazos Creek Surf Stats

The graph shows the variation of swells directed at Gazos Creek through an average September, based on 3360 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Gazos Creek. In this particular case the best grid node is 22 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 22% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Gazos Creek and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Gazos Creek, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Gazos Creek run for about 78% of the time.

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