Teba Shima Surf Stats

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Teba Shima through a typical October, 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 best grid node based on what we know about Teba Shima, and at Teba Shima 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 but lacks 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 35% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. 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 longest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Teba Shima and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Teba Shima, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Teba Shima run for about 65% of the time.

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