El Sardinero - Primera Surf Stats

This picture describes the variation of swells directed at El Sardinero - Primera over a normal April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about El Sardinero - Primera. In this particular case the best grid node is 63 km away (39 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 represent increasing swell sizes and red represents highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Sardinero - Primera and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at El Sardinero - Primera, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at El Sardinero - Primera run for about 15% of the time.

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