Aramoana Spit Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Aramoana Spit through a typical January. It is based on 3364 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 Aramoana Spit. In the case of Aramoana Spit, the best grid node is 29 km away (18 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 69% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Aramoana Spit and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Aramoana Spit, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average January, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Aramoana Spit run for about 17% of the time.

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