Dunedin - Bobs Beach Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Dunedin - Bobs Beach through a typical August. It is based on 3574 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Dunedin - Bobs Beach, and at Dunedin - Bobs Beach the best grid node is 25 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 happened only 37% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was S, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Dunedin - Bobs Beach and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Dunedin - Bobs Beach, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Dunedin - Bobs Beach run for about 63% of the time.

read more