Bay of Plenty Wind Stats

The graph illustrates how commonly and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical May. The largest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue implies the strength, with deep blue showing the strongest winds. It is based on 3440 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2007, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Bay of Plenty, located 18 km away (11 miles). There are not enough recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Without question some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the prevailing wind at Bay of Plenty blows from the SE. If the rose graph shows a fairly circular pattern, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Bay of Plenty. By contrast, dominant spokes represent favoured directions, and the more the darkest shade of blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average May, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (the lightest shade of blue) about 19% of the time (6 days each May) and blows offshore 33% of the time (10 days in an average May). During a typical May winds exceeding >40kph (25mph) are not expected, but 2 have winds on the range 30-40 (19-25) at Bay of Plenty

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