Playa Rapadoira Surf Stats

This image illustrates the range of swells directed at Playa Rapadoira through a typical April, based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Playa Rapadoira. In this particular case the best grid node is 50 km away (31 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 illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 23% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red illustrates the largest 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 prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Playa Rapadoira and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Playa Rapadoira, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Playa Rapadoira run for about 70% of the time.

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