Blankenberge Surf Stats

The figure describes the combination of swells directed at Blankenberge over a normal May and is based upon 3437 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Blankenberge, and at Blankenberge the best grid node is 22 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without 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 54% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was N, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Blankenberge and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Blankenberge, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Blankenberge run for about 8% of the time.

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