Statistiques de Surf de Playa de las Americas

This picture describes the variation of swells directed at Playa de las Americas over a normal November and is based upon 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa de las Americas. In this particular case the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 73% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa de las Americas and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Playa de las Americas, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Playa de las Americas run for about 27% of the time.

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