Praia do Aventureiro Surf Stats

This chart describes the range of swells directed at Praia do Aventureiro through a typical July. It is based on 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (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 Praia do Aventureiro. In this particular case the best grid node is 47 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 were forecast only 63% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest 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 occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was ESE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Praia do Aventureiro 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Praia do Aventureiro, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Praia do Aventureiro run for about 21% of the time.

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