Hunts Bay Surf Stats

This image describes the range of swells directed at Hunts Bay through a typical April. It is based on 3359 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Hunts Bay. In this particular case the best grid node is 9 km away (6 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened 39% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Hunts Bay and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Hunts Bay, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Hunts Bay run for about 14% of the time.

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