Playa de Cueva Surf Stats

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Playa de Cueva through an average April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa de Cueva. In this particular case the best grid node is 50 km away (31 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 show increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa de Cueva 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Playa de Cueva, 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 April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Playa de Cueva run for about 75% of the time.

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