Papatea Bay Surf Stats

The graph describes the range of swells directed at Papatea Bay through a typical April. It is based on 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Papatea Bay. In this particular case the best grid node is 22 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 71% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Papatea Bay and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Papatea Bay, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Papatea Bay run for about 29% of the time.

read more