South Padre Island Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at South Padre Island through a typical September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 South Padre Island. In this particular case the best grid node is 19 km away (12 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 31% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the most common 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 South Padre Island and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at South Padre Island, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at South Padre Island run for about 69% of the time.

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