Wainui Bay Chalet Surf Stats

This image describes the range of swells directed at Wainui Bay Chalet over a normal July. It is based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Wainui Bay Chalet. In this particular case the best grid node is 37 km away (23 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 7% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Wainui Bay Chalet and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Wainui Bay Chalet, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Wainui Bay Chalet run for about 93% of the time.

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