Yellowsands Beach Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Yellowsands Beach through a typical June, based on 3384 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Yellowsands Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 20 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 only 19% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was S, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Yellowsands Beach and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Yellowsands Beach, 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 June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Yellowsands Beach run for about 81% of the time.

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