La Puntilla Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at La Puntilla through a typical June, based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about La Puntilla, and at La Puntilla the best grid node is 20 km away (12 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 0% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from La Puntilla and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at La Puntilla, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at La Puntilla run for about 98% of the time.

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