Sand spit Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Sand spit over a normal May, based on 3422 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Sand spit. In the case of Sand spit, the best grid node is 36 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 26% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, 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 WNW (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 Sand spit and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Sand spit, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Sand spit run for about 74% of the time.

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