Playa de Pared Surf Stats

The graph describes the variation of swells directed at Playa de Pared over a normal November, based on 3347 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 best grid node based on what we know about Playa de Pared. In the case of Playa de Pared, the best grid node is 42 km away (26 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 12% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa de Pared and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Playa de Pared, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Playa de Pared run for about 88% of the time.

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