Golden Bay Wind Stats

The rose diagram illustrates how frequently and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical August. The biggest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue suggests the strength, with dark blue showing the strongest winds. It is based on 3472 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Golden Bay, located 23 km away (14 miles). There are not enough 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 prevailing wind at Golden Bay blows from the WSW. If the rose plot shows a nearly round shape, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Golden Bay. On the other hand, dominant spokes show favoured directions, and the more dark blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average August, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (pale blue) about 10% of the time (3 days each August) and blows offshore 34% of the time (11 days in an average August). During a typical August winds stronger than >40kph (25mph) are expected on 4 days at Golden Bay

read more