Dolphin Street Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Dolphin Street over a normal September. It is based on 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 Dolphin Street. In the case of Dolphin Street, the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 were forecast only 95% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each 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 longest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Dolphin Street and offshore. 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 good for surfing at Dolphin Street, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Dolphin Street run for about 0% of the time.

read more