Port Aransas Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Port Aransas through an average April. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Port Aransas, and at Port Aransas the best grid node is 37 km away (23 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 9% 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 frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Port Aransas and away from the coast. 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Port Aransas, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Port Aransas run for about 91% of the time.

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