Isla Uvita Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the variation of swells directed at Isla Uvita through a typical June and is based upon 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Isla Uvita. In this particular case the best grid node is 1 km away (1 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 happened only 3% of the time. Green and yellow represent 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 commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Isla Uvita and offshore. 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 clean enough to surf at Isla Uvita, you can select a similar diagram 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 surfable waves at Isla Uvita run for about 97% of the time.

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