Rio Chico Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Rio Chico through an average 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 shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Rio Chico. In the case of Rio Chico, 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 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 only 0.3% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SW (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Rio Chico 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Rio Chico, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Rio Chico run for about 100% of the time.

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