San Miguel - Baixa de Viola Surf Stats

This image describes the range of swells directed at San Miguel - Baixa de Viola over a normal May. It is based on 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about San Miguel - Baixa de Viola, and at San Miguel - Baixa de Viola the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 25% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was NNW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from San Miguel - Baixa de Viola 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 clean enough to surf at San Miguel - Baixa de Viola, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at San Miguel - Baixa de Viola run for about 75% of the time.

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