Ponta Negra (Quebra Mar) Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Ponta Negra (Quebra Mar) through a typical August and is based upon 3590 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Ponta Negra (Quebra Mar), and at Ponta Negra (Quebra Mar) the best grid node is 21 km away (13 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, 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 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ponta Negra (Quebra Mar) and out to sea. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Ponta Negra (Quebra Mar), you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Ponta Negra (Quebra Mar) run for about 57% of the time.

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