Playa de Santa Marina Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the combination of swells directed at Playa de Santa Marina through an average September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa de Santa Marina. In the case of Playa de Santa Marina, the best grid node is 7 km away (4 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 occurred only 14% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. 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 biggest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa de Santa Marina 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Playa de Santa Marina, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Playa de Santa Marina run for about 86% of the time.

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