Ipitanga Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the variation of swells directed at Ipitanga over a normal September and is based upon 3360 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Ipitanga. In this particular case the best grid node is 22 km away (14 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 74% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ipitanga and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Ipitanga, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Ipitanga run for about 26% of the time.

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