Tabatinga Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the variation of swells directed at Tabatinga through a typical April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Tabatinga, and at Tabatinga the best grid node is 13 km away (8 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 8% of the time. Green and yellow represent 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 commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Tabatinga and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Tabatinga, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Tabatinga run for about 92% of the time.

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