La Boca Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the combination of swells directed at La Boca through an average August. It is based on 3582 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about La Boca. In the case of La Boca, the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 94% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate 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 occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from La Boca and away from the coast. 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 clean enough to surf at La Boca, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at La Boca run for about 6% of the time.

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