Ponta do Cabeco Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the variation of swells directed at Ponta do Cabeco through an average April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Ponta do Cabeco, and at Ponta do Cabeco the best grid node is 14 km away (9 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 28% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest 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 largest spokes, was E, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ponta do Cabeco 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Ponta do Cabeco, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Ponta do Cabeco run for about 9% of the time.

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