Playa Kikitas Surf Stats

This image describes the variation of swells directed at Playa Kikitas through a typical November and is based upon 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Playa Kikitas. In this particular case the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks 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 18% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NNE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Kikitas and offshore. We combine these 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 good for surfing at Playa Kikitas, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Playa Kikitas run for about 56% of the time.

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