Laguna de Rocha Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Laguna de Rocha through an average February and is based upon 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Laguna de Rocha. In this particular case the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 56% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Laguna de Rocha and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Laguna de Rocha, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical February, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Laguna de Rocha run for about 44% of the time.

read more