Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Papatowai Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Papatowai over a normal March, based on 2964 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Papatowai. In this particular case the best grid node is 41 km away (25 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 31% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was S, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Papatowai and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Papatowai, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Papatowai run for about 69% of the time.

Also see Papatowai wind stats

Compare Papatowai with another surf break

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