El Mansito Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at El Mansito over a normal November and is based upon 2867 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about El Mansito. In this particular case the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 90% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, 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 longest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Mansito and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at El Mansito, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at El Mansito run for about 10% of the time.

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