Punta Marquez Surf Stats

The graph describes the range of swells directed at Punta Marquez over a normal August and is based upon 3590 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Punta Marquez. In this particular case the best grid node is 12 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 happened only 1.6% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the W. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Punta Marquez 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Punta Marquez, 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 Punta Marquez run for about 98% of the time.

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