Tuhawaiki Point Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the combination of swells directed at Tuhawaiki Point through a typical May, based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Tuhawaiki Point, and at Tuhawaiki Point the best grid node is 20 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 64% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tuhawaiki Point and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Tuhawaiki Point, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Tuhawaiki Point run for about 36% of the time.

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