Leadbetter Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at Leadbetter over a normal July and is based upon 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Leadbetter, and at Leadbetter the best grid node is 48 km away (30 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 were forecast only 69% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Leadbetter and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Leadbetter, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Leadbetter run for about 2.0% of the time.

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