Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay over a normal October. It is 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay, and at Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay the best grid node is 17 km away (11 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened only 30% 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 commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay and out to sea. 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 Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay, you can view an alternative image 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 Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay run for about 7% of the time.

read more