Fiji Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the range of swells directed at Fiji through a typical June. It is based on 3026 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Fiji. In this particular case the best grid node is 57 km away (35 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 2.0% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Fiji and out to sea. We lump these in 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 Fiji, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Fiji run for about 98% of the time.

read more