Praia do Meio Surf Stats

This chart illustrates the combination of swells directed at Praia do Meio over a normal August. It is based on 3590 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Praia do Meio. In the case of Praia do Meio, the best grid node is 76 km away (47 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but 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 63% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the most common wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Praia do Meio and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Praia do Meio, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical August, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Praia do Meio run for about 37% of the time.

read more