Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Playa Blanca Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The graph illustrates the variation of swells directed at Playa Blanca through an average March. It is based on 3410 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa Blanca. In the case of Playa Blanca, the best grid node is 49 km away (30 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 1.1% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the SSE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Blanca and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Playa Blanca, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Playa Blanca run for about 99% of the time.

Also see Playa Blanca wind stats

Compare Playa Blanca with another surf break

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