Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Kawaihae Breakwater Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture describes the range of swells directed at Kawaihae Breakwater through an average March. It is based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Kawaihae Breakwater. In this particular case the best grid node is 18 km away (11 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 happened only 50% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. 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 biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Kawaihae Breakwater and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Kawaihae Breakwater, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Kawaihae Breakwater run for about 11% of the time.

Also see Kawaihae Breakwater wind stats

Compare Kawaihae Breakwater with another surf break

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