Fast Lefts Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Fast Lefts over a normal June. It is based on 3026 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Fast Lefts. In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 66% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). 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 longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Fast Lefts and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Fast Lefts, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Fast Lefts run for about 34% of the time.

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