Statistiques de Surf de Tairua Bar

This image shows the variation of swells directed at Tairua Bar through an average October, based on 3468 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Tairua Bar. In the case of Tairua Bar, the best grid node is 11 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened 44% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tairua Bar and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Tairua Bar, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Tairua Bar run for about 15% of the time.

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