Port Isaac Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Port Isaac through an average June, based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Port Isaac. In the case of Port Isaac, the best grid node is 47 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 12% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Port Isaac and offshore. 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 good for surfing at Port Isaac, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Port Isaac run for about 39% of the time.

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