Silva Island-Nestles Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at Silva Island-Nestles through a typical October. It is based on 3471 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 best grid node based on what we know about Silva Island-Nestles. In this particular case the best grid node is 22 km away (14 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 0% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Silva Island-Nestles and offshore. 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 clean enough to surf at Silva Island-Nestles, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Silva Island-Nestles run for about 100% of the time.

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