Makapu'u Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Makapu'u over a normal August, based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Makapu'u, and at Makapu'u the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened only 19% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was E (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Makapu'u and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Makapu'u, 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 August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Makapu'u run for about 81% of the time.

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