Playa Pelada Surf Stats

This chart describes the combination of swells directed at Playa Pelada over a normal July. It is based on 3566 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa Pelada. In the case of Playa Pelada, the best grid node is 36 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 happened only 25% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Pelada 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Playa Pelada, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Playa Pelada run for about 75% of the time.

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