Pentewan Surf Stats

The figure describes the combination of swells directed at Pentewan through a typical November and is based upon 3107 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 best grid node based on what we know about Pentewan. In this particular case the best grid node is 35 km away (22 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast only 94% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pentewan and offshore. We group these 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 clean enough to surf at Pentewan, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Pentewan run for about 4% of the time.

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