Cueva del Indio Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Cueva del Indio through an average June and is based upon 2786 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Cueva del Indio. In this particular case the best grid node is 38 km away (24 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 happened only 63% of the time. Green and yellow show 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 commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cueva del Indio 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Cueva del Indio, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Cueva del Indio run for about 4% of the time.

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