Punta Paraiso Surf Stats

This picture describes the range of swells directed at Punta Paraiso through an average July and is based upon 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Punta Paraiso. In this particular case the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 0% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was ENE, 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 Punta Paraiso and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Punta Paraiso, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Punta Paraiso run for about 100% of the time.

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