Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Playa Union Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture shows the range of swells directed at Playa Union through a typical March and is based upon 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa Union. In this particular case the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 50% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, 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 SSE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Union and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Playa Union, 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 March, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Playa Union run for about 50% of the time.

Also see Playa Union wind stats

Compare Playa Union with another surf break

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