Statistiques de Surf de Mad River Beach

The figure shows the range of swells directed at Mad River Beach over a normal September and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Mad River Beach, and at Mad River Beach the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 only 16% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NW (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Mad River Beach and out to sea. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Mad River Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Mad River Beach run for about 77% of the time.

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