Matauri Bay Surf Stats

The graph describes the range of swells directed at Matauri Bay through a typical August and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Matauri Bay. In this particular case the best grid node is 9 km away (6 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 46% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Matauri Bay and away from the coast. We group these 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 clean enough to surf at Matauri Bay, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Matauri Bay run for about 10% of the time.

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