Pipeline (Dunedin) Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Pipeline (Dunedin) through an average November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Pipeline (Dunedin). In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 occurred only 81% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pipeline (Dunedin) 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Pipeline (Dunedin), you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Pipeline (Dunedin) run for about 19% of the time.

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