Surf Forecast Surf Report
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Carcavelos Surf Stats

All swells

(any wind direction)

Good Surf

(light / offshore wind)

The figure shows the combination of swells directed at Carcavelos through a typical March, based on 3460 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Carcavelos. In this particular case the best grid node is 24 km away (15 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These occurred only 10% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red shows biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Carcavelos and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Carcavelos, 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 March, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Carcavelos run for about 90% of the time.

Also see Carcavelos wind stats

Compare Carcavelos with another surf break

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