Marble Hill Strand Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at Marble Hill Strand over a normal September. It is 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 best grid node based on what we know about Marble Hill Strand. In this particular case the best grid node is 37 km away (23 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 62% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Marble Hill Strand and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Marble Hill Strand, 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 September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Marble Hill Strand run for about 25% of the time.

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