Guibeleco Surf Stats

The graph shows the variation of swells directed at Guibeleco through an average May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Guibeleco. In the case of Guibeleco, the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 occurred only 7% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NW (which was the same as the prevailing wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Guibeleco and out to sea. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Guibeleco, 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 May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Guibeleco run for about 40% of the time.

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