El Transito Surf Stats

This picture describes the variation of swells directed at El Transito through an average June, based on 2786 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about El Transito. In this particular case the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast only 0.3% 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 often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Transito and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at El Transito, 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 June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at El Transito run for about 66% of the time.

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