Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Sumner Bar Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This chart describes the variation of swells directed at Sumner Bar through an average March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Sumner Bar, and at Sumner Bar the best grid node is 21 km away (13 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 38% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was E, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sumner Bar and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Sumner Bar, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Sumner Bar run for about 11% of the time.

Also see Sumner Bar wind stats

Compare Sumner Bar with another surf break

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