Red Island Wind Stats

The figure describes 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 indicates the strength, with the strongest winds shown by deep blue. It is based on 3590 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Red Island, located 17 km away (11 miles). There are not enough recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. No doubt some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the dominant wind at Red Island blows from the SE. If the rose graph shows a fairly circular pattern, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Red Island. Converseley, dominant spokes show favoured directions, and the more deep 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 (light blue) about 11% of the time (3 days each August) and blows offshore 37% of the time (5 days in an average August). During a typical August winds stronger than >40kph (25mph) are expected on 2 days at Red Island

read more