Cogumelo Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the variation of swells directed at Cogumelo over a normal June and is based upon 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Cogumelo, and at Cogumelo the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without 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 were forecast only 90% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Cogumelo and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Cogumelo, 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 June, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Cogumelo run for about 10% of the time.

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