Roca Puta Surf Stats

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Roca Puta over a normal May and is based upon 3422 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 best grid node based on what we know about Roca Puta, and at Roca Puta the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 7% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NW (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Roca Puta and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Roca Puta, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Roca Puta run for about 93% of the time.

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