Yo Yo's-The Wedge Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Yo Yo's-The Wedge through a typical October. It is based on 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Yo Yo's-The Wedge, and at Yo Yo's-The Wedge the best grid node is 25 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 0% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Yo Yo's-The Wedge and offshore. We lump these in 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 Yo Yo's-The Wedge, 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 Yo Yo's-The Wedge run for about 100% of the time.

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