Tregana Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Tregana through an average August, based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Tregana. In the case of Tregana, the best grid node is 30 km away (19 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 happened only 44% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest 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 W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tregana and away from the coast. We group 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 clean enough to surf at Tregana, 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 August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Tregana run for about 35% of the time.

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