Cantao da Praia Grande Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Cantao da Praia Grande over a normal July. It is based on 3720 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Cantao da Praia Grande. In this particular case the best grid node is 30 km away (19 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without 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 19% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cantao da Praia Grande 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 diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Cantao da Praia Grande, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Cantao da Praia Grande run for about 81% of the time.

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