El Pelado Surf Stats

The figure shows the range of swells directed at El Pelado over a normal June. It is based on 2786 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Pelado, and at El Pelado the best grid node is 44 km away (27 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 0.8% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Pelado and offshore. 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 clean enough to surf at El Pelado, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at El Pelado run for about 99% of the time.

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