Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Panama La Vieja Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Panama La Vieja through a typical March and is based upon 2964 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (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 Panama La Vieja. In this particular case the best grid node is 54 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Panama La Vieja and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Panama La Vieja, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average March, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Panama La Vieja run for about 87% of the time.

Also see Panama La Vieja wind stats

Compare Panama La Vieja with another surf break

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