Playa El Rey Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the range of swells directed at Playa El Rey over a normal September, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Playa El Rey, and at Playa El Rey the best grid node is 37 km away (23 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 occurred only 0.8% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa El Rey and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Playa El Rey, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Playa El Rey run for about 99% of the time.

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