El Sardinero - Primera Surf Stats

This image describes the range of swells directed at El Sardinero - Primera through an average 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 El Sardinero - Primera. In this particular case the best grid node is 63 km away (39 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 57% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Sardinero - Primera and out to sea. We group 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 good for surfing at El Sardinero - Primera, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at El Sardinero - Primera run for about 4% of the time.

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