Salaverry Harbour Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the range of swells directed at Salaverry Harbour over a normal June, 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 Salaverry Harbour. In the case of Salaverry Harbour, the best grid node is 31 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 0% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Salaverry Harbour and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Salaverry Harbour, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Salaverry Harbour run for about 100% of the time.

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