Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay Surf Stats

The graph describes the variation of swells directed at Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay over a normal July, based on 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable 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 illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 happened only 22% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay, 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 July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Banks Peninsula - Raupo Bay run for about 22% of the time.

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