This picture shows how commonly and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical year. The biggest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue suggests the strength, with the strongest winds shown by the darkest shade of blue. It is based on 20052 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to El Balneario (Tarifa), located 35 km away (22 miles). There are insufficient recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Invevitably some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3.

According to the model, the dominant wind at El Balneario (Tarifa) blows from the W. If the rose diagram shows a close to circular outline, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at El Balneario (Tarifa). On the other hand, dominant spokes illustrate favoured directions, and the more dark blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average year, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (light blue) about 9% of the time (33 days each year) and blows offshore 21% of the time (66 days in an average year). During a typical year winds stronger than >40kph (25mph) are expected on 7 days at El Balneario (Tarifa)

IMPORTANT: Beta version feature! Swell heights are open water values from NWW3. There is no attempt to model near-shore effects. Coastal wave heights will generally be less, especially if the break does not have unobstructed exposure to the open ocean.