Conchitas Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the variation of swells directed at Conchitas over a normal May. It is based on 3406 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Conchitas, and at Conchitas the best grid node is 54 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 100% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was N, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Conchitas and offshore. 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 good for surfing at Conchitas, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Conchitas run for about 0% of the time.

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