Newgale Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the variation of swells directed at Newgale through a typical 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 coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Newgale, and at Newgale the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred 32% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Newgale and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Newgale, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Newgale run for about 68% of the time.

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