Pauanui Beach Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the range of swells directed at Pauanui Beach through an average September and is based upon 3119 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Pauanui Beach. In the case of Pauanui Beach, the best grid node is 12 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 34% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest 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 biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pauanui Beach and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Pauanui Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Pauanui Beach run for about 27% of the time.

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