Pereque Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the range of swells directed at Pereque through a typical April, based on 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Pereque, and at Pereque the best grid node is 20 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 were forecast only 1.3% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pereque and away from the coast. We lump these in 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 surfable at Pereque, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Pereque run for about 27% of the time.

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