Beg An Tour Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the range of swells directed at Beg An Tour through an average September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Beg An Tour, and at Beg An Tour the best grid node is 32 km away (20 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 only 12% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Beg An Tour 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Beg An Tour, you can load a different 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 good for surfing waves at Beg An Tour run for about 88% of the time.

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