Porthleven wave buoy
United Kingdom
Last wave reading:
Now at the buoy
Significant wave height at the buoy
1.4 ft
0.4 m
- Dominant period
- 9.1 s
- Direction
- from SW 221°
This station does not send a swell and wind-wave split, so the numbers are for the whole sea.
Short-period swell: 1.4 ft at 9.1 s from the SW. Holding steady over the last 6 hours.
Significant wave height is the average of the biggest third of waves at the buoy. It is not surf height at a beach.
Trend at the buoy
Height at the buoy
- Total (significant height)
Period
- Dominant period
Hourly means of the buoy's readings. Arrows point the way the waves travel.
Nearby buoys
- Penzance wave buoy1.2 ft · 6.7 sLive · 15 km
- Perranporth wave buoy2.1 ft · 5.9 sLive · 34 km
- Sevenstones Lightship3.3 ftStale · 57 km
- Looe Bay wave buoy1.8 ft · 7.1 sLive · 71 km
- St Marys Sound wave buoy3.2 ft · 6.9 sLive · 74 km
- SW Isles of Scilly WaveNet Site4.3 ft · 6.9 sLive · 93 km
Other readings
- Water temperature
- 56°F (13.6°C)
Reported Nov 13, 8:00 AM GMT.
How to read this buoy
Over the readings shown here, most wave energy reached this buoy from the SW.
Biggest hourly reading in that record: 8.0 ft at 11 s on Nov 11.
- Station id
- 6201044
- Operator
- South West Coastal Monitoring; National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes (NNRCMP)
- Program
- Copernicus Marine In Situ
- Position
- 50.062°N, 5.307°W
- Type
- Moored buoy
- Local time zone
- Europe/London
- Swell split
- No, whole-sea numbers only
Source: E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information; https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00036. Data from South West Coastal Monitoring; National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes (NNRCMP). Licence: Copernicus Marine Service licence. Changes: Quiver converts the units (feet, knots, °F) and shows a subset of the published fields.
Not for navigation. Readings can be late, missing or wrong; check official marine forecasts before going to sea.
Buoy terms
- Significant height
- The average of the biggest third of waves the buoy measured. Sets in the surf zone can be bigger or smaller.
- Dominant period
- Seconds between the waves carrying the most energy. Longer period means more power and more bend around points.
- Swell vs wind waves
- Swell was made by distant wind; wind waves were made nearby. The buoy splits its spectrum at a cutoff period to report each.
- Direction
- Where waves come from, in degrees true. 270° is from the west.
