Kavieng Rights Surf Stats

This picture describes the range of swells directed at Kavieng Rights through an average May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Kavieng Rights, and at Kavieng Rights the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 were forecast only 3% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kavieng Rights and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Kavieng Rights, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Kavieng Rights run for about 97% of the time.

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