Thermopylae Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Thermopylae through an average September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Thermopylae. In the case of Thermopylae, the best grid node is 38 km away (24 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 3% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Thermopylae and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Thermopylae, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Thermopylae run for about 97% of the time.

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