Coco Pipe Surf Stats

This picture describes the combination of swells directed at Coco Pipe through a typical April. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Coco Pipe, and at Coco Pipe the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 1.8% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Coco Pipe and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Coco Pipe, 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 April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Coco Pipe run for about 98% of the time.

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