La Playita Surf Stats

This picture shows the combination of swells directed at La Playita through a typical September, based on 3360 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about La Playita. In this particular case the best grid node is 5 km away (3 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 0.2% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from La Playita and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at La Playita, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at La Playita run for about 100% of the time.

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