Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Punakaiki Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Punakaiki through a typical March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Punakaiki. In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 occurred only 11% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate 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 occurs. 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 offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Punakaiki and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Punakaiki, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Punakaiki run for about 89% of the time.

Also see Punakaiki wind stats

Compare Punakaiki with another surf break

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