Praia da Rocha Surf Stats

This image illustrates the combination of swells directed at Praia da Rocha through an average 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 coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Praia da Rocha. In this particular case the best grid node is 12 km away (7 miles). The rose diagram illustrates 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 occurred only 96% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Praia da Rocha and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Praia da Rocha, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical June, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Praia da Rocha run for about 1.0% of the time.

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