Frenchman's Rock (Frenchies) Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the variation of swells directed at Frenchman's Rock (Frenchies) through an average September and is based upon 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Frenchman's Rock (Frenchies), and at Frenchman's Rock (Frenchies) the best grid node is 55 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 2% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Frenchman's Rock (Frenchies) and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Frenchman's Rock (Frenchies), you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Frenchman's Rock (Frenchies) run for about 56% of the time.

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