Radar Reef Wind Stats

This picture illustrates how commonly and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical July. The biggest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue indicates the strength, with the strongest winds shown by the darkest shade of blue. It is based on 3720 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Radar Reef, located 5 km away (3 miles). There are too few recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Invevitably some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the most common wind at Radar Reef blows from the WSW. If the rose plot shows a nearly round shape, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Radar Reef. By contrast, dominant spokes represent favoured directions, and the more the darkest shade of blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average July, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (pale blue) about 7% of the time (2 days each July) and blows offshore 38% of the time (12 days in an average July). In a typical July winds stronger than >40kph (25mph) are expected on 4 days at Radar Reef

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