Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Arica Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This chart shows the range of swells directed at Arica over a normal March. It is based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Arica, and at Arica the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 0% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, 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 biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Arica 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Arica, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Arica run for about 100% of the time.

Also see Arica wind stats

Compare Arica with another surf break

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