Statistiques de Surf de White Sands

The graph illustrates the variation of swells directed at White Sands through a typical August. It is based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about White Sands, and at White Sands the best grid node is 32 km away (20 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened 64% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from White Sands and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at White Sands, 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 August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at White Sands run for about 9% of the time.

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