Morne Rights Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the variation of swells directed at Morne Rights through a typical August and is based upon 2976 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Morne Rights, and at Morne Rights the best grid node is 32 km away (20 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 37% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Morne Rights and out to sea. 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 clean enough to surf at Morne Rights, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Morne Rights run for about 63% of the time.

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