Folly Beach Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Folly Beach through an average April and is based upon 1200 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Folly Beach. In this particular case the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without 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 54% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was E, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Folly Beach and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Folly Beach, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Folly Beach run for about 8% of the time.

read more