Las Cuevas Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Las Cuevas over a normal June, based on 3506 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 Las Cuevas. In this particular case the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 6% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Las Cuevas and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Las Cuevas, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Las Cuevas run for about 94% of the time.

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