Pickop's Point Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Pickop's Point over a normal May, based on 3192 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Pickop's Point, and at Pickop's Point the best grid node is 30 km away (19 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 happened only 35% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pickop's Point and offshore. We group 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 good for surfing at Pickop's Point, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Pickop's Point run for about 65% of the time.

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