Kennebunk Beach Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Kennebunk Beach over a normal November. It is based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Kennebunk Beach. In the case of Kennebunk Beach, the best grid node is 38 km away (24 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 50% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest 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 largest spokes, was E, 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 Kennebunk Beach and out to sea. We lump these in 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 good for surfing at Kennebunk Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Kennebunk Beach run for about 7% of the time.

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