Playa do Orzan Surf Stats

The graph describes the combination of swells directed at Playa do Orzan over a normal June. It is based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Playa do Orzan. In this particular case the best grid node is 16 km away (10 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 9% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, 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 largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa do Orzan 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Playa do Orzan, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Playa do Orzan run for about 60% of the time.

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