El Capitan Wind Stats

The rose diagram describes how frequently and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical June. The biggest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue indicates the strength, with dark blue showing the strongest winds. It is based on 2786 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to El Capitan, located 44 km away (27 miles). There are insufficient recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Invevitably some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the prevailing wind at El Capitan blows from the WNW. If the rose plot shows a nearly round shape, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at El Capitan. On the other hand, dominant spokes show favoured directions, and the more the darkest shade of blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average June, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (light blue) about 7% of the time (2 days each June) and blows offshore 62% of the time (18 days in an average June). In a typical June winds stronger than >40kph (25mph) are expected on 2 days at El Capitan

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