Van Riebeek Wind Stats

The rose diagram illustrates how often and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical April. The longest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue suggests the strength, with the darkest shade of blue strongest. It is based on 3360 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2007, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Van Riebeek, located 47 km away (29 miles). There are not enough recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. No doubt some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the most common wind at Van Riebeek blows from the SW. If the rose graph shows a fairly circular pattern, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Van Riebeek. By contrast, dominant spokes show favoured directions, and the more the darkest shade of blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average April, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (pale blue) about 10% of the time (3 days each April) and blows offshore 15% of the time (5 days in an average April). During a typical April winds stronger than >40kph (25mph) are expected on 2 days at Van Riebeek

read more