Panama City Pier Surf Stats

This image describes the combination of swells directed at Panama City Pier over a normal November. It is based on 2857 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Panama City Pier. In this particular case the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 were forecast 68% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, 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 largest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Panama City Pier and offshore. We group these 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 good for surfing at Panama City Pier, 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 November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Panama City Pier run for about 32% of the time.

read more