Ponta da Pinheira Surf Stats

The rose diagram illustrates the combination of swells directed at Ponta da Pinheira through a typical June and is based upon 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Ponta da Pinheira. In this particular case the best grid node is 55 km away (34 miles). The rose diagram shows 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 occurred only 46% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell happens. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was E, whereas the the most common 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 Ponta da Pinheira and out to sea. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Ponta da Pinheira, 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 June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Ponta da Pinheira run for about 54% of the time.

read more