Aropaonui Surf Stats

This chart shows the range of swells directed at Aropaonui through an average August, based on 3574 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 best grid node based on what we know about Aropaonui. In this particular case the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 only 20% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Aropaonui and away from the coast. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Aropaonui, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Aropaonui run for about 80% of the time.

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