Nosara Beach Surf Stats

This image shows the combination of swells directed at Nosara Beach through an average May, based on 2838 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Nosara Beach. In the case of Nosara Beach, the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 100% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Nosara Beach and away from the coast. 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 clean enough to surf at Nosara Beach, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Nosara Beach run for about 0% of the time.

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