Farstadstranda Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the range of swells directed at Farstadstranda over a normal April and is based upon 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Farstadstranda, and at Farstadstranda the best grid node is 8 km away (5 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 39% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Farstadstranda 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 clean enough to surf at Farstadstranda, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Farstadstranda run for about 61% of the time.

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