Morro Negro Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the variation of swells directed at Morro Negro over a normal August, based on 2976 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Morro Negro. In this particular case the best grid node is 54 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast only 4% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was N, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Morro Negro and away from the coast. 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Morro Negro, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Morro Negro run for about 78% of the time.

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