Playa Colorado Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Playa Colorado through an average June, based on 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Playa Colorado, and at Playa Colorado the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 3% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Colorado and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Playa Colorado, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Playa Colorado run for about 97% of the time.

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