Croyde Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Croyde over a normal September and is based upon 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Croyde, and at Croyde the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 happened 18% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Croyde and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Croyde, 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 September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Croyde run for about 82% of the time.

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