Statistiques de Surf de Praia do Pinho

The figure illustrates the variation of swells directed at Praia do Pinho through an average October. It is based on 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Praia do Pinho. In this particular case the best grid node is 8 km away (5 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 happened only 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E (which was the same as the most common wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Praia do Pinho and out to sea. We lump these in 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 good for surfing at Praia do Pinho, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Praia do Pinho run for about 87% of the time.

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