Osaki Surf Stats

This picture describes the combination of swells directed at Osaki through a typical January, based on 2868 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Osaki. In this particular case the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 90% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was S, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Osaki and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Osaki, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average January, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Osaki run for about 4% of the time.

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