Statistiques de Surf de Petacalco

This picture describes the range of swells directed at Petacalco through a typical October. It is based on 3223 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 most applicable grid node based on what we know about Petacalco. In the case of Petacalco, the best grid node is 50 km away (31 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 happened only 0.2% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the 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 biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Petacalco 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Petacalco, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Petacalco run for about 100% of the time.

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