Ponta da Fruta Surf Stats

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at Ponta da Fruta through a typical May and is based upon 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Ponta da Fruta, and at Ponta da Fruta the best grid node is 35 km away (22 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 21% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ponta da Fruta 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 graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Ponta da Fruta, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Ponta da Fruta run for about 79% of the time.

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