Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Playa Gigante Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Playa Gigante through an average March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Playa Gigante, and at Playa Gigante the best grid node is 52 km away (32 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 10% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Gigante 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Playa Gigante, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Playa Gigante run for about 90% of the time.

Also see Playa Gigante wind stats

Compare Playa Gigante with another surf break

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