Millendreath Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Millendreath through a typical October, based on 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Millendreath. In this particular case the best grid node is 39 km away (24 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 52% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Millendreath 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 surfable at Millendreath, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Millendreath run for about 31% of the time.

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