Sutton-on-Sea Surf Stats

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Sutton-on-Sea over a normal February, based on 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Sutton-on-Sea. In the case of Sutton-on-Sea, the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 only 64% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was N, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sutton-on-Sea and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Sutton-on-Sea, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical February, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Sutton-on-Sea run for about 13% of the time.

read more