Louro (Playa Area Maior) Surf Stats

This picture shows the range of swells directed at Louro (Playa Area Maior) through a typical May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Louro (Playa Area Maior). In the case of Louro (Playa Area Maior), the best grid node is 29 km away (18 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 happened only 54% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W, 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 Louro (Playa Area Maior) and away from the coast. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Louro (Playa Area Maior), you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Louro (Playa Area Maior) run for about 7% of the time.

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