Baleal Sul Surf Stats

The figure describes the variation of swells directed at Baleal Sul through a typical August, based on 3574 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Baleal Sul. In the case of Baleal Sul, the best grid node is 20 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast only 38% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Baleal Sul and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Baleal Sul, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Baleal Sul run for about 62% of the time.

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