Playa Santa Teresa Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at Playa Santa Teresa through an average September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Playa Santa Teresa. In the case of Playa Santa Teresa, the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 occurred only 99% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Santa Teresa and away from the coast. We combine 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 Playa Santa Teresa, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Playa Santa Teresa run for about 1.0% of the time.

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