Río Grande Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at Río Grande through an average October and is based upon 3471 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 Río Grande. In this particular case the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 occurred only 47% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Río Grande and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Río Grande, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Río Grande run for about 53% of the time.

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