Playa Amarilla Surf Stats

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at Playa Amarilla through a typical August. It is based on 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Playa Amarilla. In this particular case the best grid node is 45 km away (28 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 11% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Amarilla 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 Playa Amarilla, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Playa Amarilla run for about 87% of the time.

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