Low Newton Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the range of swells directed at Low Newton over a normal November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Low Newton, and at Low Newton the best grid node is 8 km away (5 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 48% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Low Newton and away from the coast. 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Low Newton, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Low Newton run for about 30% of the time.

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