Tarantulas Surf Stats

This picture shows the range of swells directed at Tarantulas through a typical 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 coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Tarantulas, and at Tarantulas the best grid node is 0 km away (0 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 63% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tarantulas and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Tarantulas, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Tarantulas run for about 37% of the time.

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