Peaceful Bay Surf Stats

The figure shows the range of swells directed at Peaceful Bay through an average May and is based upon 2944 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Peaceful Bay, and at Peaceful Bay the best grid node is 39 km away (24 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 only 0% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, 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 Peaceful Bay and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Peaceful Bay, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Peaceful Bay run for about 89% of the time.

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