Boca De Santo Tomas Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Boca De Santo Tomas through a typical June and is based upon 3506 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 Boca De Santo Tomas. In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 50% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Boca De Santo Tomas and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Boca De Santo Tomas, 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 June, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Boca De Santo Tomas run for about 50% of the time.

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