Leftovers/Rightovers Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Leftovers/Rightovers over a normal September and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Leftovers/Rightovers, and at Leftovers/Rightovers the best grid node is 41 km away (25 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 64% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Leftovers/Rightovers 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 good for surfing at Leftovers/Rightovers, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Leftovers/Rightovers run for about 36% of the time.

read more