Cartagena - Hilton Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the combination of swells directed at Cartagena - Hilton through a typical September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Cartagena - Hilton, and at Cartagena - Hilton the best grid node is 50 km away (31 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 were forecast only 95% 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 frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cartagena - Hilton and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Cartagena - Hilton, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Cartagena - Hilton run for about 1.0% of the time.

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