Temae Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the variation of swells directed at Temae through a typical July and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Temae, and at Temae the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 10% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was S, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Temae and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Temae, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Temae run for about 81% of the time.

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