El Camotal Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at El Camotal over a normal May and is based upon 2838 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about El Camotal, and at El Camotal the best grid node is 35 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 100% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was N, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Camotal 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at El Camotal, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at El Camotal run for about 0% of the time.

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