Ka'anapali Point Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Ka'anapali Point over a normal September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Ka'anapali Point, and at Ka'anapali Point the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 67% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ka'anapali Point and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Ka'anapali Point, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Ka'anapali Point run for about 23% of the time.

read more