Punta Ositos Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at Punta Ositos through a typical July and is based upon 3720 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Punta Ositos. In the case of Punta Ositos, the best grid node is 42 km away (26 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 8% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Punta Ositos and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Punta Ositos, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Punta Ositos run for about 92% of the time.

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