Wanukaka Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Wanukaka through an average November, based on 3347 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 Wanukaka, and at Wanukaka the best grid node is 35 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 0% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SSE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Wanukaka and offshore. We combine 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 good for surfing at Wanukaka, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Wanukaka run for about 58% of the time.

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