Napier - Hardings Road Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at Napier - Hardings Road through a typical July and is based upon 3720 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 best grid node based on what we know about Napier - Hardings Road, and at Napier - Hardings Road the best grid node is 8 km away (5 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 occurred only 54% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was E, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Napier - Hardings Road and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Napier - Hardings Road, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Napier - Hardings Road run for about 11% of the time.

read more