Rio Nexpa Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at Rio Nexpa through a typical June. It is based on 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Rio Nexpa. In this particular case the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 1.2% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Rio Nexpa and out to sea. We group these 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 Nexpa, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Rio Nexpa run for about 74% of the time.

read more