Boca de Apisa Surf Stats

This picture shows the range of swells directed at Boca de Apisa through a typical July and is based upon 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Boca de Apisa. In this particular case the best grid node is 34 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 occurred only 1.8% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Boca de Apisa 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Boca de Apisa, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Boca de Apisa run for about 98% of the time.

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