Terceira - Ponta do Queimado Surf Stats

This chart shows the range of swells directed at Terceira - Ponta do Queimado over a normal July and is based upon 3720 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 best grid node based on what we know about Terceira - Ponta do Queimado. In this particular case the best grid node is 27 km away (17 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 17% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows the 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 NNW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Terceira - Ponta do Queimado and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Terceira - Ponta do Queimado, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Terceira - Ponta do Queimado run for about 83% of the time.

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