Taronui Bay-Bombora Surf Stats

The figure describes the combination of swells directed at Taronui Bay-Bombora through an average 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 shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Taronui Bay-Bombora, and at Taronui Bay-Bombora the best grid node is 14 km away (9 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 were forecast only 37% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Taronui Bay-Bombora and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Taronui Bay-Bombora, you can load a different image 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 clean enough to surf waves at Taronui Bay-Bombora run for about 28% of the time.

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