Rainbow Bay Wind Stats

The figure shows how frequently and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical June. The biggest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue suggests the strength, with deep blue showing the strongest winds. It is based on 3506 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Rainbow Bay, located 19 km away (12 miles). There are not enough recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Invevitably some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the prevailing wind at Rainbow Bay blows from the ESE. If the rose graph shows a fairly circular pattern, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Rainbow Bay. By contrast, dominant spokes show favoured directions, and the more the darkest shade of blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average June, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (light blue) about 10% of the time (3 days each June) and blows offshore 65% of the time (2 days in an average June). During a typical June wind stronger than >40kph (25mph) was predicted for only a single days at Rainbow Bay

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