Silver Bay (Holy Island) Surf Stats

This image illustrates the variation of swells directed at Silver Bay (Holy Island) through an average October. It is based on 2975 NWW3 model predictions since 2008 (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 Silver Bay (Holy Island). In this particular case the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 44% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Silver Bay (Holy Island) 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Silver Bay (Holy Island), you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Silver Bay (Holy Island) run for about 26% of the time.

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