Almograve Surf Stats

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at Almograve through an average May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Almograve. In this particular case the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 happened only 1.8% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either 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 biggest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Almograve and offshore. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Almograve, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Almograve run for about 98% of the time.

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