Campo Renes Surf Stats

This picture shows the range of swells directed at Campo Renes over a normal August and is based upon 3574 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Campo Renes, and at Campo Renes the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 occurred only 4% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Campo Renes and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Campo Renes, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical August, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Campo Renes run for about 96% of the time.

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