Praia Tenório Surf Stats

The figure shows the range of swells directed at Praia Tenório 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 or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Praia Tenório. In this particular case the best grid node is 7 km away (4 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 happened only 67% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was SSE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NE. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Praia Tenório and out to sea. We combine 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 Tenório, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical May, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Praia Tenório run for about 6% of the time.

read more