Cerro Azul Surf Stats

This image describes the range of swells directed at Cerro Azul through a typical August and is based upon 3472 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Cerro Azul. In this particular case the best grid node is 3 km away (2 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 were forecast only 12% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cerro Azul and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Cerro Azul, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Cerro Azul run for about 88% of the time.

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