Catlins River Mouth Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Catlins River Mouth through an average August and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Catlins River Mouth. In the case of Catlins River Mouth, the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 32% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Catlins River Mouth and out to sea. We lump these in 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 Catlins River Mouth, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Catlins River Mouth run for about 55% of the time.

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