Black Beach / Cahuita Surf Stats

This picture describes the range of swells directed at Black Beach / Cahuita through an average October and is based upon 3471 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 best grid node based on what we know about Black Beach / Cahuita. In the case of Black Beach / Cahuita, the best grid node is 48 km away (30 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred 23% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the 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 prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Black Beach / Cahuita and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Black Beach / Cahuita, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Black Beach / Cahuita run for about 77% of the time.

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