Statistiques de Surf de Pontal

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Pontal over a normal June, based on 1354 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Pontal. In the case of Pontal, the best grid node is 27 km away (17 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 were forecast only 4% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest 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 longest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the SE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pontal and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Pontal, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Pontal run for about 96% of the time.

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