Banks Peninsula - Stony Bay Surf Stats

The graph describes the combination of swells directed at Banks Peninsula - Stony Bay through a typical October and is based upon 3471 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 Banks Peninsula - Stony Bay, and at Banks Peninsula - Stony Bay the best grid node is 20 km away (12 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 30% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Banks Peninsula - Stony Bay and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Banks Peninsula - Stony Bay, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Banks Peninsula - Stony Bay run for about 7% of the time.

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