Waiehu beach park Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the variation of swells directed at Waiehu beach park over a normal April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Waiehu beach park, and at Waiehu beach park the best grid node is 8 km away (5 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 42% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents largest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Waiehu beach park and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Waiehu beach park, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Waiehu beach park run for about 58% of the time.

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