Statistiques de Surf de Sidmouth

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Sidmouth through an average August, based on 2975 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Sidmouth, and at Sidmouth the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened 54% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sidmouth 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 surfable at Sidmouth, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Sidmouth run for about 1.0% of the time.

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