Costa Nova Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the variation of swells directed at Costa Nova through a typical May. It is based on 3406 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 Costa Nova. In the case of Costa Nova, the best grid node is 25 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 5% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Costa Nova and out to sea. We combine 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 Costa Nova, you can select a similar diagram 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 good for surfing waves at Costa Nova run for about 95% of the time.

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