Playa de Tres Piedras Surf Stats

This picture shows the range of swells directed at Playa de Tres Piedras over a normal June. It is based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Playa de Tres Piedras, and at Playa de Tres Piedras the best grid node is 22 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred 25% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa de Tres Piedras 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Playa de Tres Piedras, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Playa de Tres Piedras run for about 75% of the time.

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