Vanimo Reef Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at Vanimo Reef over a normal October, based on 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Vanimo Reef. In the case of Vanimo Reef, the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 only 26% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was N, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Vanimo Reef and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Vanimo Reef, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Vanimo Reef run for about 9% of the time.

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