Praia Branca Wind Stats

This picture illustrates how frequently and how strongly the wind blows from different directions through a typical June. The longest spokes point in the directions the wind most commonly blows from and the shade of blue suggests the strength, with dark blue showing the strongest winds. It is based on 3506 NWW3 forecasts of wind since since 2006, at 3hr intervals, for the closest NWW3 model node to Praia Branca, located 20 km away (12 miles). There are insufficient recording stations world wide to use actual wind data. Without question some coastal places have very localized wind effects that would not be predicted by NWW3. According to the model, the prevailing wind at Praia Branca blows from the SSE. If the rose graph shows a fairly circular pattern, it means there is no strong bias in wind direction at Praia Branca. On the other hand, dominant spokes represent favoured directions, and the more the darkest shade of blue, the stronger the wind. Spokes point in the direction the wind blows from. Over an average June, the model suggests that winds are light enough for the sea to be glassy (pale blue) about 23% of the time (7 days each June) and blows offshore 40% of the time (11 days in an average June). During a typical June winds exceeding >40kph (25mph) are not expected, but 1 have winds on the range 30-40 (19-25) at Praia Branca

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