El Faro Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the combination of swells directed at El Faro over a normal November, based on 2867 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about El Faro. In the case of El Faro, the best grid node is 56 km away (35 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 81% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Faro and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at El Faro, 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 November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at El Faro run for about 19% of the time.

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