Parea Left Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Parea Left through a typical July and is based upon 2976 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Parea Left. In the case of Parea Left, the best grid node is 20 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 were forecast only 71% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Parea Left and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Parea Left, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Parea Left run for about 29% of the time.

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