Raglan-Whale Bay Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the range of swells directed at Raglan-Whale Bay through an average February and is based upon 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Raglan-Whale Bay, and at Raglan-Whale Bay the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 5% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Raglan-Whale Bay and offshore. We combine these 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 surfable at Raglan-Whale Bay, 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 February, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Raglan-Whale Bay run for about 59% of the time.

read more