Whangamata Bar Wind Stats

The figure illustrates how often and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical April. The longest 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 3360 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2007, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Whangamata Bar, located 24 km away (15 miles). There are insufficient recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. No doubt some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the most common wind at Whangamata Bar blows from the ENE. If the rose graph shows a fairly circular pattern, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Whangamata Bar. Converseley, dominant spokes show 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 April, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (light blue) about 13% of the time (4 days each April) and blows offshore 45% of the time (3 days in an average April). During a typical April wind stronger than >40kph (25mph) was expected for only a single days at Whangamata Bar

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