Mablethorpe Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Mablethorpe through a typical April. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Mablethorpe. In this particular case 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 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 57% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was N, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Mablethorpe and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Mablethorpe, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Mablethorpe run for about 10% of the time.

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