El Cardon Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at El Cardon through a typical October and is based upon 2976 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about El Cardon. In the case of El Cardon, the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 5% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Cardon and offshore. We group 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 good for surfing at El Cardon, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at El Cardon run for about 95% of the time.

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