Praia do Amor Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Praia do Amor through a typical July. It is based on 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Praia do Amor, and at Praia do Amor the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 0% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows 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 most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, 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 Praia do Amor and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Praia do Amor, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Praia do Amor run for about 100% of the time.

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