Newport-Crosswaves Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Newport-Crosswaves through a typical October. It is based on 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 Newport-Crosswaves, and at Newport-Crosswaves the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 happened only 21% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Newport-Crosswaves 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Newport-Crosswaves, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Newport-Crosswaves run for about 79% of the time.

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