Punta Paraiso Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Punta Paraiso through an average August. It is based on 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Punta Paraiso. In this particular case the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 0.2% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was ENE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Punta Paraiso 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Punta Paraiso, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical August, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Punta Paraiso run for about 100% of the time.

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