Otago Peninsula - Long Beach Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Otago Peninsula - Long Beach over a normal November and is based upon 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Otago Peninsula - Long Beach, and at Otago Peninsula - Long Beach the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast only 80% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Otago Peninsula - Long Beach and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Otago Peninsula - Long Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Otago Peninsula - Long Beach run for about 9% of the time.

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