Statistiques de Surf de Madeiro

This picture describes the variation of swells directed at Madeiro through a typical June. It is based on 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Madeiro. In this particular case the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 1.9% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Madeiro and away from the coast. 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 surfable at Madeiro, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Madeiro run for about 98% of the time.

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