La Aguada Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at La Aguada through a typical May and is based upon 3440 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 La Aguada, and at La Aguada the best grid node is 51 km away (32 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 36% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from La Aguada and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at La Aguada, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at La Aguada run for about 9% of the time.

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