Quissico Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Quissico through a typical April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Quissico, and at Quissico the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 7% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Quissico and offshore. 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 Quissico, 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 April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Quissico run for about 93% of the time.

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