Las Caracolas Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Las Caracolas through an average June. It is based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Las Caracolas. In the case of Las Caracolas, the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 62% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Las Caracolas and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Las Caracolas, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Las Caracolas run for about 38% of the time.

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