El Paso Surf Stats

The graph shows the variation of swells directed at El Paso through an average November. It is based on 2867 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about El Paso. In the case of El Paso, the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 happened only 0% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the S. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Paso and away from the coast. We combine these 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 El Paso, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at El Paso run for about 94% of the time.

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