Playa de Madorra Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Playa de Madorra over a normal October and is based upon 3471 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa de Madorra. In the case of Playa de Madorra, the best grid node is 20 km away (12 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 10% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa de Madorra 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Playa de Madorra, 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 October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Playa de Madorra run for about 66% of the time.

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