Mahia Spit Wind Stats

The figure shows how commonly and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical August. The biggest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue suggests the strength, with the darkest shade of blue showing the strongest winds. It is based on 3472 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Mahia Spit, located 12 km away (7 miles). There are insufficient recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Invevitably some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the prevailing wind at Mahia Spit blows from the ENE. If the rose graph shows a fairly circular pattern, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Mahia Spit. Converseley, dominant spokes illustrate favoured directions, and the more deep blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average August, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (light blue) about 3% of the time (1 days each August) and blows offshore just 9% of the time (3 days in an average August). In a typical August wind stronger than >40kph (25mph) was predicted for only a single days at Mahia Spit

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