El Murcielago Surf Stats

The graph shows the combination of swells directed at El Murcielago over a normal April and is based upon 2880 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about El Murcielago. In the case of El Murcielago, the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 were forecast only 85% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Murcielago and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at El Murcielago, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at El Murcielago run for about 15% of the time.

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