Statistiques de Surf de La Salina

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at La Salina through an average September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about La Salina. In this particular case the best grid node is 11 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 14% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest 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 most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from La Salina and out to sea. We lump these in 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 surfable at La Salina, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at La Salina run for about 86% of the time.

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