Playa de Cadavedo Surf Stats

This image shows the combination of swells directed at Playa de Cadavedo through a typical September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Playa de Cadavedo. In this particular case 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 without 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 were forecast only 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest 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 NW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa de Cadavedo and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Playa de Cadavedo, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Playa de Cadavedo run for about 70% of the time.

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