Florencia Bay Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Florencia Bay over a normal July. It is based on 3224 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 best grid node based on what we know about Florencia Bay. In the case of Florencia Bay, the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 occurred only 34% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Florencia Bay and offshore. We combine 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 clean enough to surf at Florencia Bay, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Florencia Bay run for about 50% of the time.

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