Sumbe Surf Stats

This chart describes the variation of swells directed at Sumbe through a typical November. It is based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Sumbe, and at Sumbe the best grid node is 47 km away (29 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened only 8% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SW (which was the same as the dominant wind direction). Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sumbe and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Sumbe, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Sumbe run for about 92% of the time.

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