Wainui Reef Surf Stats

This image illustrates the range of swells directed at Wainui Reef over a normal July. It is based on 3472 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Wainui Reef, and at Wainui Reef the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 21% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Wainui Reef and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Wainui Reef, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Wainui Reef run for about 49% of the time.

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